Charles Leclerc assessed Ferrari’s prospects at the upcoming Dutch Grand Prix. The Monegasque admitted that it won’t be easy for his team to challenge Red Bull Racing and McLaren at Zandvoort, but he remains optimistic.
Charles Leclerc: “I think we will spend the weekend in Zandvoort at the same level as the previous two. Before, we couldn’t optimise the possibilities because we were changing the settings to the extreme, trying to find out what was wrong with the car.
Once the team understood what the problem was, we simply focused on optimizing performance this weekend – and that led to better results. This weekend we set ourselves the same goal.
However, I understand that on such a circuit we may have more problems. But if we do everything right, and with wind in the forecast on Friday and rain on Saturday, I think we will be able to compete.
I continue to believe that we have a chance to win the title. And I will believe as long as winning the championship is mathematically possible. But if you really assess the chances, McLaren are very, very fast. They have made serious progress and are now slightly ahead of us. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are very fast and they have a great car, so staying ahead of McLaren is our top priority. Then we can talk about Red Bull.
“In several previous races we were quite far behind the leaders. McLaren and Red Bull are consistently fast and now Mercedes has taken a big step forward. There is a lot of work ahead of us.”
When Charles was asked to comment on Carlos Sainz’s decision to sign for Williams, he replied: “First of all, it has to be said that Carlos is incredibly talented, but not only that. He is a great asset to any team. Carlos helped us a lot with the development of the car and we worked well together. Carlos always has good relationships with his teammates – it happened with Lando Norris, and it happened with me.
On track, he and I showed very good results. Sometimes there was tension between us, but we discussed everything privately and the problem remained in the past. Carlos has many strengths, but the most obvious is his speed. I think that together with Alex Albon they will be a great driver duo at Williams.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
