Leclerc: "I thought it was easier"

His first race weekend with Sauber got off to a disappointing start.

He might be the reigning Formula 2 world champion but F1-rookie Charles Leclerc says he underestimated the Albert Park Circuit after a disappointing Friday. The Sauber driver finished bottom of both practice sessions on Friday and was left to reflect on what was a difficult day.

"I didn't do a good time this morning, it was a little better this afternoon," he said.

"I'm more and more confident with the track. It's not easy - I thought it was easier.

"It looked quite simple but when you drive it, it's not that easy."

His pace was poor in FP1, finishing behind teammate Marcus Ericsson by a big 0.8s margin however an improved performance in practice two saw the Monegasque driver almost match his teammate exactly, ending up just 0.001s off of Ericsson's best. The Sauber was widely touted to be one of the poorer-looking cars handling and performance-wise at testing up and down the paddock but Leclerc believes that they had a positive day one of 2018.

"We're trying to work on the car as we're quite far, even very far," he said. "We need to keep working, but it's a rather positive day for me."

Teammate Ericsson was equally positive about the teams weekend so far,

"It was a positive day - we completed a lot of laps testing different compounds," he said.

"We continued developing our understanding of the new car, building on what we learned during winter testing.

"We still have lots of work ahead of us to get to where we want to be. Today's sessions were good in preparing us for the rest of the weekend."