Charles Leclerc says Ferrari 'struggling like crazy' with car

1 year ago 24

Charles Leclerc driving for Ferrari astatine the 2023 Miami Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari are "struggling similar crazy" with a car they bash not recognize this year.

Leclerc finished seventh successful Sunday's Miami Grand Prix, portion team-mate Carlos Sainz dropped from 3rd connected the grid to decorativeness fifth.

"We person a car that is truthful incredibly hard to beryllium connected the limit. We are very, precise acold away," said Leclerc.

"I conflict to find an mentation arsenic to wherefore we are truthful acold distant successful the contention and truthful adjacent successful qualifying."

Leclerc had the one-lap gait to commencement the contention connected the beforehand enactment successful Miami but crashed successful qualifying. On contention time the Ferrari exhibited its accustomed deficiency of pace.

"We are competitory successful qualifying but erstwhile we travel to contention time we are struggling similar crazy," Leclerc, 25, said. "The model of our car is truthful constrictive and whenever you get a small spot retired it has immense consequences connected the balance.

"It's from 1 country to the different and adjacent successful 1 country sometimes you tin person immense understeer which goes to immense oversteer and this is not perfect to person assurance successful the car."

The car was besides precise delicate to wind, Leclerc added.

He said: "We person a batch of enactment to do. We request to find something. We person been struggling successful the contention since a small clip present and we request to travel up with immoderate issues."

He and team-mate Sainz said that the car was besides exhibiting antithetic behaviour connected antithetic types of tyre - and squad brag Frederic Vasseur said that it was besides antithetic for each driver.

"With Charles we were overmuch much performant connected the hard (tyre), and with Carlos overmuch much performant connected the medium," Vasseur said. "And from 1 thigh to the different we were a spot inconsistent."

Leclerc said: "It's ever an chartless whether the car is going to respond well, whether the tyres are going to beryllium successful the close window.

"This is conscionable precise hard besides arsenic a operator to summation the assurance and to accommodate your driving due to the fact that you get from 1 acceptable to the different and the car is wholly successful a antithetic window."

Leclerc was Red Bull operator Max Verstappen's closest challenger for the satellite rubric past year, earlier their play imploded with a bid of race-management and strategy errors.

Those mistakes led to erstwhile squad main Mattia Binotto losing his occupation implicit the winter.

Ferrari entered this play expecting to beryllium capable to combat Red Bull for the title again but find themselves successful 4th spot successful the constructors' title aft 5 races, besides down Aston Martin and Mercedes.

They introduced a caller level successful Miami but it had small effect connected the car's competitiveness. Further upgrades are planned for the adjacent race, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix connected 19-21 May, the archetypal of 3 races connected consecutive weekends.