Charles Leclerc is all set to go racing at one of his favourite circuits, but he’s well aware that it will be difficult to replicate his strong showing in Monza, where the Scuderia was clearly the second team in the pecking order. “As you know, I love street circuits and this is undoubtedly one of my favourites,” he said in conversation with the media at the Marina Bay circuit. “But its characteristics will probably not suit our car that well, because in the past it has performed inconsistently on high downforce tracks”. The Monegasque is therefore cautious when it comes to what might be possible. “Better to keep our feet on the ground, see how free practice goes and then we will have a clearer understanding.”
Closely matched. “I think that in qualifying, the driver can make a difference,” continued Charles. “Whereas when it comes to the race, it’s more a question of the overall execution from the team. I expect that, between the next five teams in the classification behind Red Bull, the gaps will be very small both on Saturday and on Sunday and it will be particularly important to prepare everything down to the smallest detail. Both in Zandvoort and Monza, we learned a lot as a team about the behaviour of the SF-23 and I’m sure that here, we will make the most of the information we acquired. The goal for this weekend is to execute each phase as well as possible and if we do, then we can see how many points we can bring home.”