Leclerc Fires Warning At Red Bulls Following Second Race

Tuesday, 12 March 2024 at 09:01

Charles Leclerc discussed the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and warned Red Bull ahead of the remaining 22 race weekends of the season.

The 26-year-old driver started the second race of the season from the second position on the grid. Counting the end of the previous season, it was his seventh consecutive front-row start.

The Monegasque driver knew ahead of the race that he would probably not be able to match the speed of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in Red Bull, who proved to have superior race pace in Bahrain.

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That was indeed the case, so the best Leclerc could do was finish in third, which he did. The one positive thing for him is that he managed to snatch the race's fastest lap in the end. He told the media:

"We maximized everything today. We were struggling all the time at the beginning of the stints, whether it was at the beginning of the medium or the beginning of the hard, we struggled to switch the tires on."

The Ferrari driver admitted right after the race that it was a bit boring because he was 10 seconds behind the Red Bulls in front and 13.368 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri in P4. He continued:

"Then, towards the end of the stint, we were pretty good with the medium… With the hard, we saw that [the pace was good] towards the end, but it was too late to actually recover what we had lost at the beginning with the battles we had. So, all in all, it's been a positive race."

In the end, the Ferrari driver pointed out that he believed his team was the one that made the biggest progress and warned that it would only be a matter of time before he could challenge Red Bull drivers.

"I think we're doing small steps in the right direction. If I look back, the last six, seven months, we're the team that have improved the most, and we're slowly closing the gap."

"The gap is still quite big, but if we keep working like that, I'm sure it's a matter of time until we put the Red Bulls under a bit more pressure."