Leclerc expects Ferrari to be “back to reality” in F1’s French GP

Charles Leclerc doubts Ferrari can maintain its impressive run of form in Formula 1 at this weekend’s French Grand Prix.
(L to R): Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP) Ferrari with team mate Charles Leclerc (MON) Ferrari.
(L to R): Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP) Ferrari with team mate Charles Leclerc …
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Leclerc has taken pole position in the last two races in Monaco and Baku as Ferrari enjoyed a surprising upturn in performance.

Ferrari has performed well in the low-speed corners throughout the season, with the Paul Ricard Circuit consisting of predominantly medium-speed corners.

Leclerc expects Ferrari to “struggle” relatively to the previous two races.

“I think it will be a bit back to reality,” Leclerc said. “That’s been two weekends, in Monaco we didn’t expect to be as competitive, in Baku we definitely didn’t expect it and we expected to be back to reality in Baku but actually I feel like this weekend is unfortunately will be the weekend where we will be back to reality and we will be struggling a bit more compared to the last two weekend.

“There is a bit more medium speed [corners] here, it’s a bit more of a normal track. I expect to struggle a bit more this weekend.”

The Monegasque driver expects Ferrari to be competing with McLaren and AlphaTauri in France this weekend.

“I really hope that it won’t be outside of the points but no,” Leclerc added. “I feel like we are probably going to be the fourth, third team fighting with McLaren, AlphaTauri, always these same teams that we are fighting with but with a bit more of a gap to the top two teams which are Mercedes and Red Bull.”

Like Leclerc, Sainz expects Ferrari to fall down the pecking order but the Spaniard insists he’s focusing on his own performance, rather than the team’s.

“I think it’s going to be back to where we are expecting to be pretty much every weekend, a bit like Barcelona in a way where we know where we were competitive but not at the level of the last two races,” Sainz explained. 

“I am looking forward to it. I am more focused on myself than in car performance to be honest because I think there’s a lot more to get from myself to put in a weekend together than focusing too much on the others.”

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