Charles Leclerc believes “there is still potential to unlock on the Ferrari SF-25”. Charles Leclerc explained that there were no balance issues with the red car during the Bahrain tests.

Lewis Hamilton called him “Mr. Ferrari”, emphasizing how integral Charles Leclerc is to a team with which he is about to begin his seventh season. However, Charles backpedaled, aware that this is too much of a burdensome nickname.
“There is no place for one particular driver when it comes to Ferrari; this team is bigger than any driver. It has always been this way, and that’s what makes Ferrari so special.”

Charles Leclerc is aware that questions about coexisting with Lewis Hamilton will take a back seat once the first standings start coming in, which will be from tomorrow. The focus will shift to the car, and Charles hinted at this topic by explaining the work done at Maranello after the Bahrain tests and revealing an important detail.

During the Sakhir tests, Ferrari’s engineers conducted numerous tests, making drastic changes to the car’s setup as a way to explore various areas before deciding on a direction to focus on.
“We know there is potential to unlock, but honestly, during the tests, we didn’t have any balance issues. We simply tried different setup options, trying to understand which directions we need to push towards for this first race and to generally understand the car. I think we did a good job, but we haven’t yet optimized the car, and I don’t think any other team has done better. We’ll see on Saturday where we stand compared to the others.” – the Monegasque driver pointed out ahead of the Australian Grand Prix weekend at the Albert Park circuit.

“In Formula 1 today, working on balance itself is probably the easiest part,” Charles Leclerc continued. “But there are so many different directions you can take in terms of philosophy with this generation of cars, which is why we decided that the approach we took would be the best way to learn more and improve more. It’s work you can’t do during a race weekend because the feeling with the car changes so much, and you can’t afford to do it in FP1 or FP2. So, we had to get it out of the way, and we did that during the tests. Now we will continue tuning the balance, we have already worked a lot on this front using the simulator, and we’ll continue from tomorrow’s free practice.” – the Ferrari man concluded.