Leclerc sees Red Bull being faster in longruns: 'Work to do'

Charles Leclerc topped the grid twice in Friday's practice sessions, yet it was not a perfect start to the weekend for Ferrari. In qualifying, the Italian formation looks to have a good chance at pole position, but tyre degradation is something where there are real steps to be taken.

"Yes, there is a lot of work to do tonight", Leclerc pokes fun at Sky Italia. "On the short run we looked strong, the high-fuel run looks very difficult for now. We will have to work very hard and find quite a bit of pace for tomorrow."

 Race pace Ferrari disappoints

The Monegasque is not very worried, but he knows that more performance needs to be found in the race simulation. "I don’t want to call it a fear but let’s say it’s definitely the priority to work on that and to get better; at the moment we are just not strong on race pace. For the one lap in qualifying, I don’t think it will be an issue, but then we degrade them quite a lot for some reason. I don’t quite have an explanation for now, but we need to try and find a reason and then once we find a reason, we’ll work to make it better.”

Tomorrow, starting at 12:00, Ferrari has only the third free practice session on the program to make a step forward. For one hour, Ferrari can test out the last things with Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to appear optimally prepared at the start of qualifying.