Leclerc ponders Ferrari problem: 'Completely new car the solution?'

Deep-seated problems with Ferrari's SF-23?

With that, the Monegasque seems to think the problems are deeply rooted in the concept of the current car. Ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, Leclerc tells GPblog and the other media present that he did make some progress in driving the car in this season.

Leclerc: "Yes, this year. Obviously, I'm working quite a bit on it because at the moment our car, it's not that it cannot be oversteery, we can set it up as any cars on the oversteery side but whenever it's oversteery it's extremely inconsistent and so we have to drive it on the understeery side and that makes it quite difficult for me to use my driving style in order to extract lap time."

Whether this progress Leclerc has made is enough? The Monegasque says it isn't an ideal situation and thinks there may have to be a drastic intervention in the development of the car: "Honestly, it's been like this since the beginning of the season. Some tracks work a little bit better, others a little bit less. I wouldn't say that it's a breakthrough from that moment [Japanese Grand Prix] onwards because the issues of the car are still there and I think we need maybe a completely new car to get rid of it and that is a target for next year."