Charles Leclerc believes F1 title is “not out of reach” but there will be “no miracles” at Australian Grand Prix
Leclerc failed to finish the season-opener in Bahrain then came P7 in Saudi Arabia, while Red Bull won both of 2023’s races through each of their driver𝓀s.
Ferrari have also experienced mishaps which have become the norm in recent years - Leclerc needed a new energy store before the first race, so was hit with a grꩵid penalty in the second.
Ahead of the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:F1 Australian Grand Prix, the 2022 runner-up in the F1 standings told Sky that this year’s championship is still possible: “Of ๊course it is, it’s still early in the season.
“We cannot hide and say that ev🐻erything is fine, and that🉐 from this weekend onwards we’ll be fighting for wins again.
“We need to be realistic. The way it is now, we’re far away from the performan🌠ce we want.
“That doesn’t mean we need to demotivate ourselvꦗes.
“The season is long, we have upgrades coming in the next few༺ races, hopefully this will help us to close the gap to Red Bull who are in another league. Aston Martin are also really strong in races.
“We need to work, we know this.
“But we don’t think the title is out of reach.”
Leclerc is returning to the scen🀅e in Melbourne where he claimed victory last season by mor🦹e than 20s.
The Ferrari driver🍷 won two of the opening three races in 2022, emergi𓆏ng as a viable threat to Max Verstappen until his team’s reliability issues hampered him.
“Good memories, but we’re not coming into this race in the same situation,” he sighed about last year’s joy.&n🍨bsp;
“Clearly, our performance is not as good as last⛦ year.
“We are fully motivated to get back to the front.
“There won’t be any miracles this weekend.
“Then we’ve got a three-week break wh𒈔ere we’ll tryꦜ to bring upgrades.”
Leclerc has been forced to shoot down reports that 🐼he demanded crisis talks with Ferrari president John Elkann at Marane♌llo this season.
Heܫ has also denied plꦉans that he will move to Mercedes.
Ferrari are also experiencing an upheaval behind-the-scenes at M🐓ar🉐anello.
New team principal Fred Vasseur said about their slow start: “The most important thing in this kind of situation is to know where we are going well and what we are doing wrong. But we𒉰 cannot bulls*** ourselves.
“We have to change. We have to un🐼derstand where we are wronꦡg, and we have to push. It’s not [good enough] to speak, we will not be faster like this.”
Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz added: “We know this track isn’t too different from Jeddah. Nothing says we should out-pace th🃏e Red Bulls.
“I prefer to keep expectations low. We were eight tenths off, in the�♚� race. To change that just because of a different circuit? Difficult.”
Sainz said about the SF-23: “It’s a bit inconsistent, unpredictable. Let’s say it’s not the easiest to set it up. But we know why.&nbs💝p;
“We know the numbers, the data, we🌼’ve analysed it, we know where the weaknesses are.
“This gives us an idea of how to develop, the diওrection to go. This will be medium-term.
“The car is doing what the data suggests. This makes me optimistic. Ferrari has the capacity to develop, the manpower to ch🐼ange quickly.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports﷽ for a decade covering everything from American 💦sports, to football, to F1.
