Charles Leclerc has expressed doubt on Ferrari being able to sustain the team’s surprise competitiveness in Monaco at this weekend’s Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix.
Leclerc went into his home round dampening Ferrari’s expectations amid the anticipation that Monte Carlo would expose the SF-25’s limitations in low-speed corners.
But having headed all three practice sessions, the Monegasque qualified on the front row and then converted that in the race to notch his second podium this season.
Leclerc suspects Monaco’s unique characteristics allowed Ferrari to place an emphasis on maximising the car’s performance at slow speed without a loss elsewhere.
The eight-time F1 race winner has acknowledged that repeating that approach won’t be possible at other tracks, though, including at this weekend’s race in Barcelona.
“I think the only explanation I can find for now is that on a track like this, where there’s only low speed – basically no high-speed corners – in most of the tracks, we had to take compromises in order to not lose too much in high-speed corners,” Leclerc explained to media including Motorsport Week in Monaco.
“We don’t have to set up the car in a way where we compromise anything here because we just focus on the low speed.
“And when we are on these kinds of tracks, it seems that there’s some performance in the low speed from the car.
“But we are a little bit stuck at the moment on other tracks, so I don’t think we can apply it to any other tracks other than Monaco, unfortunately.”
Was Monaco a false dawn for Ferrari?
But while Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur is also remaining grounded, the Frenchman is optimistic the side has made progress towards improving its pace over a single lap.
“Miami was a bit different for traffic, but at least Jeddah and Imola, it was almost the same spec for us that we were struggling in quali on tyre management,” he explained.
“These two races with Miami also that we didn’t improve with a set of new, we did our fastest lap with a scrub set in quali and then when you start P10, P9, it’s much more difficult.
“It was 11th or 12th in Imola. But in Imola, in Jeddah, I think our race pace was decent.
“We were fighting with McLaren, probably we were the fastest in Jeddah on track and at the end of the day it was a matter of quali that this weekend.
“Even if we were not happy with P2, I think we did a much better job in the preparation of the weekend, it went well.
“But it’s not that we are on those two-day racing and it will work on every single track. I think that this is true for us, this is true for everybody on the grid.
“With the tyres sometimes you finish the weekend and you have the feeling to have everything under control.
“You have to start from scratch a week after and that we have to keep an open mind and spend next week and do a good job again.
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