Despite setting the second-fastest time in Friday practice for the Singapore Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc has admitted that his Ferrari F1 car “didn’t exactly feel like I wanted.” Leclerc was less than a tenth off Lando Norris’ top time, with a significant margin to Carlos Sainz behind. Reflecting on his Friday at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Leclerc conceded Ferrari can’t just “rely on a good Friday.”
“It felt good but there’s still some work to be done,” Leclerc said. “The car didn’t exactly feel like I wanted. We still have to improve it. Also the forecast for the rest of the weekend, similarly up and down. We will have to adapt very quickly. We cannot rely on a good Friday. It’s been a good Friday. It’s always better to have a good one than a bad one. It’s a good starting point. We still have to push forward.”
“Just a bit more balance in the car putting everything together in terms of driving. We should be in a good place for tomorrow.” Leclerc had a 0.5s margin over Sainz in third, while Mercedes and Red Bull were further off the pace. Thus, he expects Ferrari’s rivals to be “much closer” in qualifying.
“I think we’re in the mix but let’s see,” Leclerc added. “I just hope the picture doesn’t change much for tomorrow. I would be very surprised if we have the same advantage today, same gap from me to the third place. I believe everyone will be much closer tomorrow. It will be much tighter. Then we will have to understand whether it changes the pecking order or not.”
Sainz blamed brake issues for his deficit to Leclerc. Explaining the problem, he said: “It’s been a bit of a topic this year in our team. We ran into some brake issues normally on Friday and today it was my turn to face them with a lot of inconsistency on the brakes throughout FP2, especially on laps, outlaps, plenty of issues out there which doesn’t help the confidence or preparation for the weekend. It’s not something that concerns me when we manage to put everything together tomorrow.”
