Charles Leclerc is hoping that Ferrari can spring a “surprise” in Qatar against a McLaren side he expects to be “super strong” again.
McLaren’s MCL60 car has excelled on high-speed circuit configurations throughout 2023, culminating in the British side scoring a double podium last time out in Japan.
With the Lusail International Circuit, returning on a full-time basis after a standalone appearance in 2021, only featuring one lower-speed corner, McLaren has been tipped to repeat its Suzuka exploits in Qatar.
Although Ferrari’s inconsistency has caused Leclerc to act coy on its prospects, he is hopeful the team can utilise the intervention of the Sprint format to beat its rivals.
Asked how he expects the newly resurfaced track to suit Ferrari’s car, Leclerc said: “I really don’t know anymore because whenever I said something, the opposite happened during the weekend.
“I would expect a team like McLaren to be, again, very strong, because they’ve been super strong in the medium-high speed corners since they got the new upgrade, so I think they will be strong.
“And, hopefully, we’ll create a positive surprise. I think in all the Sprint Races so far this year have been quite positive for us, so I hope we had a good preparation and be on the good side of things for this weekend.”
Despite being eclipsed by McLaren, Ferrari outscored Mercedes for the third consecutive weekend to close to within 20 points of second place in the standings.
Leclerc insists that Ferrari’s mid-season upturn has provided optimism it can catch Red Bull, who wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship with six rounds to spare.
“On one side you always need to look at yourself, and I think that since Zandvoort we’ve learned a lot and on that we are happy,” he explained regarding Ferrari’s improvement.
“But, of course, we understand that Red Bull is still very far ahead, the McLaren when they are at their peak, they are extremely strong, like they were in Suzuka.
“All in all we are more happy with what we’ve learned than depressed with the difference for Red Bull, because I think that with what we’ve learned we can make a significant step in the future. And we hope to close the gap to Red Bull as soon as possible.”
Since the summer break Ferrari has avoided the occasional slumps in performance that had regularly stymied its competitiveness during the first half of the campaign.
Leclerc’s team-mate, Carlos Sainz, scored successive pole positions in Monza and Singapore, converting the latter into the only non-Red Bull victory of the year so far.
Expanding on Ferrari’s renewed consistency, Leclerc attributes the Maranello camp’s progress to the extensive tests it conducted across the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.
Asked to expand on Ferrari’s improvement, Leclerc said: “Definitively the understanding we had in Zandvoort, especially, and that we confirmed in Monza, a very different track.
“That helped us to, basically, to extract the maximum out of the car more consistently, whereas at the beginning of the year we were more up and down and the car would feel very different from one weekend to the other. On that, we improved a lot.”
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