Leclerc Can't Wait For First Race Of 2024 Season: 'We Believe We Have Done Good Job'
F1Thursday, 29 February 2024 at 00:00
Charles Leclerc seemed upbeat during an interview with the media ahead of the first race of the season as he hinted Ferrari had done a "good job."
As part of Wednesday's drivers' obligations, Charles Leclerc answered a few questions from the media concerning his expectations from the first race.
Scuderia Ferrari went through the three days of pre-season testing pretty smoothly, with Carlos Sainz setting the fastest lap of the day on Thursday and Charles Leclerc setting the quickest lap on Friday.
While the purpose of the testing wasn't to go for the fastest lap, the Italian team certainly showed their SF-24 had great potential ahead of the first race. But how will it compare to other cars? Leclerc told the media during a meeting in the Ferrari facility:
"I think we all want to see what the real picture is in an actual Grand Prix. We gathered plenty of information on our side, and we believe we have done a good job, but we haven't gone head-to-head with the others, and I can't wait to do that."
The team from Maranello seems to be in a better position than they were after testing during the most recent season. The 26-year-old F1 driver explained:
"Last year, the car was so inconsistent in terms of performance that we didn't know how to deal with it. This time however, we have identified the areas where we need to improve and those where we believe we are in particularly good shape."
On the one hand, Leclerc already lowered expectations from Ferrari fans when he said his feeling is that Red Bull will be "quite a bit ahead."
On the other hand, we have yet to find out the real pace of every car during the qualifying session this Friday, and Ferrari could still surprise us. Leclerc added he is much more satisfied with the baseline of this year's car.
"It means that, back in the factory, they are already working on the data to decide on the direction in which to develop the package. We can, therefore, say we are starting from a very different and much better baseline than last year."
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