Charles Leclerc arrived in Spielberg straight from Maranello where he had been working up to the last minute on preparations for the Austrian Grand Prix. In the paddock, the Monegasque met with journalists and discussed the goals for this weekend. “First of all, we want to check, at a different track to Canada, the progress we saw there, where we were able to count on a car that performed consistently in the race. If we can confirm the step forward we took in Montreal, then we can race on a regular basis against Aston Martin and Mercedes, which would already be an important step, given that so far this season we have usually had to defend. We will have some new parts on the car that we will try in free practice tomorrow and we hope they can help us even more.”
Sprint format. Charles is known to be a fan of this format. “The Sprint weekend favours those who have prepared well for the races back in the factory and I think that’s the case for our team,” he explained. “In general, I like it because every day there’s something important: tomorrow it’s qualifying, then on Saturday it’s the Sprint day and on Sunday the Grand Prix. “On top of that, I really like this circuit because some parts of it remind me of a karting track. There is a chance of rain this weekend, for tomorrow and mainly for Saturday, but Leclerc is not too worried about that. “On a qualifying lap in heavy rain, we have seen that we are competitive, just as we are in the dry, so I think we can be in the fight. Our race pace is still an unknown quantity, but as I said, we want to check it on this type of track.”