Leclerc Reveals Ferrari Short-Term And Long-Term Targets After Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Tuesday, 07 November 2023 at 19:00

Updated at Tuesday, 07 November 2023 at 22:41

Scuderia Ferrari F1 driver Charles Leclerc talked about the long-term and short-term targets for his team after the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Even though Charles Leclerc had to retire from the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix before the race even began, Ferrari closed the gap in the Constructors' Championship on Mercedes down to only 20 points.

With two races to go, Ferrari has a real chance to overtake the Silver Arrows in the battle for second place in the Constructors' Championship. Leclerc told the media:

"Race pace is what we are missing the most, but I will also say that yes, we are missing 20 points to Mercedes and short-term, this is where we should focus."

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Ferrari has struggled a bit since the beginning of the season as the team lacked pace on Red Bull, Aston Martin, and Mercedes. However, Leclerc feels the team has made huge progress.

"Since Zandvoort, we've made big steps forward in the understanding of our car, in the concepts that we have and the directions we've been taking."

Apparently, the Italian team now understands their car better and knows in which direction to push toward the end of the season and going into 2024.

"We've set it a little bit more and understood which is the direction to push. This gives me the confidence that we can close the gap in the future, then how close or when is much more difficult to answer."

The team had a great chance to compete for the World Championship in 2022 as Ferrari was the fastest car at the beginning of that season. But the Italian team could not follow up with upgrades to keep pace with Red Bull.

"Ferrari wants to be back on top. There are many more points to recover to be the first team, especially against a Red Bull that is extremely strong at the moment."

Ferrari seems to be getting there in terms of qualifying pace. Leclerc qualified top two in all three previous race weekends - two times in pole position in Austin and Mexico City and one time in the second place in Sao Paulo.

"That is the medium to long-term target and yeah, so that's why we are putting all the efforts in order to be back to the level of performance we've seen at the beginning of last year, where we were fighting for wins and fighting for the championship."