Charles: “In race trim the SF-25 is competitive”

Charles Leclerc was in today’s FIA press conference at Suzuka circuit and declared himself confident going into the third round of the season. “The start of the championship has not been ideal, but our car is definitely better than it has appeared to be so far,” he stated.

Work to do. Charles then went into the first two races in more detail: “In Australia, we made several mistakes and paid the price for the decisions we made,” he said. “Then, in China, we started very well on Friday, especially with Lewis who did a great job in qualifying and then, in Saturday’s Sprint, he made the most of starting from the front to take a comfortable win. Then in the afternoon, the others fine-tuned their car set-up and so we ended up on the third row of the grid. In Formula 1 at the moment, with the performance gaps so close, starting in the middle of the pack instead of at the front means that, even if you have good pace, you can’t show it and that’s why we were unable to fight for a podium finish,” continued Leclerc. “We must work on qualifying better, because I believe we have a very strong car for the race, which can allow us to be competitive behind McLaren, who so far this season are doing what Red Bull did a year ago. Our aim is to prove the worth of our package as from this weekend in Japan.”