Charles Leclerc is already looking beyond this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, admitting there will be no “miracles”.
A year ago, the Monegasque dominated at Albert Park, claiming a Grand Slam of pole, win, fastest lap and leading every lap in Melbourne.
But ahead of the 2023 race, Leclerc acknowledges Ferrari is not currently in a position to repeat.
“Yeah, good memories,” he said in reflection, “but looking [at] this year we are not coming into this race in the same situation as we were last year.
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“I think clearly our performance is not as good as last year but we are working massively to try and come back to the front.
“We are fully motivated, and we know what we need to work on, but I don’t think there will be any miracles for this weekend.
“After that, we’ve got a three-week break and we will try to use it in the best way possible in order to bring upgrades as quickly as possible on the car.”
Ferrari is understood to be planning a major upgrade for the first Italian race at Imola in May, potentially moving away from the bathtub sidepods their 2022 and 2023 cars are known for.
But until then, Leclerc expects the trends of the first two races to continue.
“I think that in qualifying we’ve been quite good since the beginning of the season,” he accepted. “Where we need to focus on is the race where our car is extremely ‘peaky’.
“When all the conditions are right, we seem to be able to extract the performance out of our package but whenever the conditions are changing a little bit with a heavier car, you see the limitations a little bit more, that’s where you struggle, so we are trying to focus on that.
“I do believe we will be quite close in qualifying, I hope so, but I think the picture in the race will be quite similar [to previous Grands Prix],” he concluded.
