Charles Leclerc of Monaco, driving for Ferrari SF-24, expressed his belief that the team’s strong performance in practice for the Australian Grand Prix gives them a great chance to outperform Red Bull this season. In the first practice session, Leclerc finished fourth, just 0.035 seconds behind Lando Norris, but in the second session, he was almost four-tenths faster than Max Verstappen. Ferrari has made significant improvements to their car, the SF-24, eliminating the previous issues with wind sensitivity. Leclerc was pleased with how the car handled right from the start in Melbourne. While acknowledging that Red Bull is still the team to beat, Leclerc is hopeful that Ferrari’s impressive practice pace could create opportunities for them to challenge.
The general consensus from the initial races is that Ferrari has achieved their goal of translating their impressive speed in qualifying into more consistent performance during the races in 2024.
Helmut Marko, motorsport advisor for Red Bull, observed that Leclerc’s performance during the second practice session was “impressive”. However, Leclerc himself pointed out that some teams were unable to complete clean laps due to traffic.
“The race pace seems to be quite strong, but it’s difficult to make comparisons because some drivers faced heavy traffic while we had relatively clear laps. Nonetheless, it looked promising,” Leclerc stated.
“It’s better to have a good performance on Friday than the other way around. It’s a positive start, but we still need to keep pushing and see what we can achieve,” he added.
During practice, Leclerc, like many other drivers, encountered challenging moments, such as losing control at Turn 1 and sliding across the grass run-off area towards the end of the session.
“Everything is very tricky,” Leclerc admitted. “The track is very demanding with high curbs and strong winds. Additionally, there’s only one racing line, so if you deviate even slightly, you lose a significant amount of grip. It definitely poses a challenge.”
“However, we have shown good speed so far, and we are enjoying it. But we will have to wait and see if we can maintain our pace tomorrow,” Leclerc concluded.