Charles Leclerc expects a “tricky” fight to keep the fourth place he claimed in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ferrari do appear to be back on form as the Monegasque secured ‘best of the rest’ behind Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes’.
In fact, Leclerc was less than a tenth slower than Valtteri Bottas in third, but looking ahead to Sunday, he admits his eyes are more on Pierre Gasly behind rather than what’s ahead.
“I think the top three realistically is not reachable yet,” he told Sky Sports. “Our goal is to obviously try at least to keep our position.
“I have to say that seeing yesterday I’m quite impressed by AlphaTauri, they were very very quick on the race pace yesterday so it’s going to be tricky.”
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Ferrari’s progress shouldn’t be underestimated as they’ve jumped Aston Martin, McLaren and Alpine to sit as the third-best team to start 2021.
And Leclerc is enthusiastic about what he’s seen so far from the SF21.
“I think we just have a much stronger car,” he stated. “Whether it’s in balance, as I was saying on Friday, I think the car is a bit easier to drive compared to last year.
“We have a bit more power and I can feel it but then we need to see relative to the others where we are at.
“It’s still early days, but it feels like we’ve done a significant step,” he added. “It’s only the first quali so let’s keep the feet on the ground and keep working very hard.
“But it looks promising for now, and I’m happy to be back a bit.”
New teammate Carlos Sainz was certainly keeping Leclerc honest throughout qualifying, with just 0.001s splitting them at the end of Q2.
Ultimately, after Q3, the Spaniard had dropped six-tenths behind in P8, but he was still very satisfied, especially after an early scare.
“A very positive day for the team. I think we can be happy with where we are,” he said.
“We had that very big shock in Q1, with the car turning off, but thankfully I could start it again and made it to the pits.
“It’s not always easy to recover from that, but we managed to have a very strong Q2. I’m obviously not happy with my last attempt in Q3, I went for it, but I’m probably lacking a bit more knowledge on the car and I couldn’t put together a clean lap. It is what it is.
“Now I want to switch my full focus to tomorrow’s race. I’m looking forward to my first ever race with the team and we’ll give our best to gain positions and finish as high as possible.”