Leclerc believes that Ferrari can still win the title in 2024
Charles Leclerc says that Scuderia Ferrari team can target the 2024 Formula 1 constructors’ championship and he insists that there is still “everything to play for” with eight races remaining.
However he admitted that the Italian team has to improve the SF-24 and become more consistently competitive over the last part of the season.
Ferrari currently lies 39 points behind leaders Red Bull, and 31 behind McLaren.
“Yeah, there’s definitely an opportunity,” said Leclerc when asked by this writer about the upcoming races.
“I think realistically to go and take the drivers’ championship is going to require not only a step in performance, but probably a little bit of luck as well.
“For the constructors’, everything is to play for. I think it’s 40-something points, which with two drivers in one team, it’s feasible. On that we’ve got our chances, and it’s a target we shall fix ourselves.
“But before that, before thinking about any title, we’ve got to improve our car in order to be consistently in the fight with the guys in the front, and not be there in one race just because they didn’t optimise their package, and then be a little bit more in the back foot. Because then otherwise, we’ll struggle.”
Leclerc conceded that Ferrari still lags behind its two main rivals.
“I don’t think we are at the level of McLaren and Red Bull yet,” he said. “I think like in Monza, when they don’t optimise their package, we can be there and try and win it, and we did it in Monza.
“However, going forward, we still have some steps forward to be done in order to challenge them consistently.
“They still have the faster car, especially McLaren, I think then it’s probably Red Bull, and then Mercedes, it depends, with us. We are a bit more inconsistent. We still have some work to do.”
Leclerc is a favourite for this weekend given his strong form in Baku over the years, but he cautioned that the team’s Monza pace might not translate to the street track.
“Not more than other tracks,” he said when asked if he was confident of a good weekend.
“Now we’ve got to reset whenever we come to a track, and not think about the previous race.
“We’ve seen it in Montreal after Monaco, Monaco went pretty well, and then we struggled a lot in Montreal. So we’ve got to come here with a new mindset. Not a new mindset, because the mindset remains the same, but with no expectations, and that’s what we try to do.
“Then, of course, I cannot forget that it’s one of my favourite tracks, and I love this track, and I feel particularly at ease on this one.
“So normally, I’ve been pretty strong in the past. However, it doesn’t influence the way I prepare myself for this race. I just prepare myself as well as any other race weekends.”
Regarding the car’s potential this weekend he said: “Our mechanical package, at least the one that for the compliances, is going to be very similar to the rest of the season. We are not bringing any upgrades on that.
“So I will expect that our compliances in the slow speed are still very good. And that should be a strength.
“It’s a strength of our car. I think we it should be a strong weekend for us here. At least on the paper, it’s a more positive weekend than others, but we’ve still got to confirm that on track.”
Having won Monza with great tyre management Leclerc believes that could also be an advantage in Baku.
“I think Singapore will be more about quali pace, more than tyre management,” he said.
“Here, it can be a factor. I mean, it will be a factor. So here, definitely in the past, that’s where we’ve been struggling, in the race and in qualifying we were very strong.
“But then coming the race, we were struggling with tyre management, which this year seems to be a bit more of a strength, quite a bit more, if you compare it to the years before. So I hope we can use that strength here in order to be more competitive on Sunday.”
Adam Cooper F1 