Charles Leclerc: Carlos is doing better than me

Charles Leclerc, in response to questions from journalists in Shanghai, honestly admitted that he had been inferior to Carlos Sainz recently, but promised to make every effort to overtake his partner, and also suggested that the Shanghai Grand Prix circuit should be better suited to the Ferrari car. But the conversation started with a completely different topic, which had nothing to do with motorsport. According to Charles, a new family member recently appeared in his house: a puppy named Leo.

Charles Leclerc: “There have always been dogs in our family, but I never had one. And now we got Leo last Monday! This is amazing! When I’m home, I take care of him myself, and when I’m not there, my boyfriend takes care of him.

When we talk about the upcoming Grand Prix, in theory we can perform better on the Shanghai circuit than in Suzuka, but our working method remains the same. I still believe Red Bull will have the advantage this weekend, but we just have to focus on our own tasks.

As we saw in Suzuka, you can easily drop from 4th to 8th in qualifying. So it is very important not to make mistakes, because this weekend’s program includes a sprint and we have two qualifications ahead of us, so it is necessary to fully utilize the potential of SF-24.

But overall we are in very good shape this year and I think we can get closer to Red Bull in the race than in Japan. But we’ll see, because we haven’t driven on this track for a long time…

I have to admit that Carlos is doing better than me at the moment. It’s difficult to compare just our results in Bahrain because I couldn’t get there due to some problems, but other than that I performed with a lot of confidence that weekend. But in the two previous races he was simply stronger, and now it is my job to do that. to work on my speed, especially in qualifying mode, although this used to be my strong point.

But lately I haven’t been able to do a good lap at the right time, because the line that separates a good one from a bad one is very thin, and it is not always possible to warm up the tires properly on the last lap of the race. the wells. So far I’m doing worse than Carlos, who is now performing at a very high level. But it’s great for our team, and for me too. However, I am confident that I will be able to achieve improvements in the very short term. I’m not worried about that, although we have to demonstrate this first and foremost on the track, starting with tomorrow’s qualifying.”