By Nick Mulvenney
SUZUKA, Japan (Reuters) – Charles Leclerc said Ferrari were not panicking yet despite managing to accumulate only 17 championship points in the first two races of a season in which they were touted as title challengers.
Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton were eighth and 10th in the season-opener in Australia and finished fifth and sixth in China two weeks ago before both cars were disqualified for technical infringements.
“The first two races were difficult,” Leclerc told reporters ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix on Thursday.
“The pace was not exactly where we were expected it to be, and to lose even more points than we already did with (the disqualifications) hurt the team a lot, but I’m confident that we’ve learn from it.”
Leclerc said there was still a major issue with the performance of the car and that Hamilton’s victory in the sprint race in China was essentially down to the skill of the seven-times world champion.
“The performance, compared to McLaren specifically, is just not good enough,” the Monegasque added.
“So it’s not about how hard it is to extract the maximum performance out of the car, it’s just that there’s not enough performance in the car for now.
“But little step by little step I’m hoping that we can close that gap, starting from this weekend.”
Leclerc finished third in the drivers’ championship with three race wins last season and said Ferrari were probably still in a better position than they were at a similar stage of 2024.
“There’s definitely the feeling that we haven’t maximised what we could have for these first two races,” he added.
“This is frustrating, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot recover. We are aware that the season is still very young and with small steps we can still have an amazing season.”
Leclerc said that the most important improvement he would be looking for would be more pace in qualifying so he and Hamilton were on the right part of the grid to compete with the frontrunners.
Even if his weekend ultimately ended in disqualification, the 27-year-old did show some encouraging pace during the race in Shanghai.
That pace was evident despite Leclerc having to drive for most of the race without part of his front wing after an early clash with Hamilton — an experience he was not keen to repeat.
“By changing the tools and adapting the driving, it didn’t have as much of an influence as we as we thought,” he said.
“But it’s still faster to have a full front wing.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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