Leclerc sees opportunity for Ferrari: 'Verstappen won't win every time'

Charles Leclerc does not beat around the bush. Of course he and his Ferrari team want to win as many Grands Prix as possible, and of course the Italians are making progress in developing their car. "I think for things to really shake up, you'll wait until 2026," the Monegasque driver believes. This is not to say that Red Bull Racing, and Max Verstappen in particular, will win everything until the rulebook change in '26.

In 2026, there will be a drastic change in the technical regulations, which could shake up the rankings considerably. "I think that can potentially be a big shake-up for every team, including PUs probably being one of the biggest things," Leclerc says. "Now there's not really anything between PUs between teams, but a lot more between cars. I expect Red Bull, being the team that they are, to always carry an advantage, because they're ahead, they're just as smart, smarter in many ways. if they do just as good of a job as any other team, they should always carry the advantage that they have.."

But, Leclerc added: "But you do hope that they start to run out of good ideas. So I think every team's catching up. I think even if you look at our 12 months of progress from last year, we've been the team who have developed the most. So when you look at it from that perspective, I think we can be very happy with the job that we're doing. But it's not enough, and it's not close enough to challenge them [Red Bull]."

Still, Leclerc is hopeful of winning with Ferrari in 2024. "But I think there'll be races this year where Max won't win. And Ferrari's closest at the minute. So even this weekend, I think you might see Ferrari close and potentially ahead."

Why Leclerc has this confidence? "Because he was close to not winning some last year. We were close last year at certain times," Leclerc said.