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Leclerc: Ferrari will be quicker this weekend

09:18, 29 Mar 2019

byJake Williams-Smith

Charles Leclerc believes that Ferrari will be much faster than it was in Melbourne. The Scuderia had looked the favourite after winter testing but disappointed many, finishing just fourth and fifth having been off the pace for the entire weekend.

Leclerc's first weekend as a Ferrari driver was nothing spectacular but he did put his team under immediate pressure to call in team orders, with Sebastian Vettel struggling with older tyres and a long way off the pace of the leaders, Leclerc was told to remain behind his more experienced teammate despite being faster.

The Italian team was surprised to be so far off the pace of Mercedes and Red Bull in Australia but believes it has found where it lost out compared to its rivals and according to Leclerc, will be in the hunt in Bahrain.

"We expect to be more competitive," he said.

"I think our package is strong. We have some answers to the lack of performance in Melbourne. I don’t think we have all of them but we definitely have some answers to it.

"Then we will only see here whether it was only track specific or if there is something else but I am pretty confident in the package we have."

The Monegasque also admitted that he had to focus on qualifying, one of his self-admitted Achilles heels from last season, in order to maximise his race weekend.

"In Q3 I didn’t put the lap in as I wanted to and then in the race I think you have seen the off on the TV. It didn’t have any consequences for the result because obviously I was fifth and there was nobody behind but in other situations it could have been a lot worse, so I need to work on this."