Leclerc does not „expect any miracles” at Singapore

Despite the high-downforce nature of the Marina Bay Circuit, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc does not expect any miracles after a difficult weekend for the Scuderia last time out at Baku.

Ferrari suffered a tough weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix two weeks ago. The Scuderia put in a dominant performance on the opening day of the Baku weekend, with Lewis Hamilton having set the benchmark on Friday ahead of his team-mate Charles Leclerc.

However, conditions changed massively for Saturday and so changed Ferrari’s form. Hamilton was not even able to progress into the final qualifying segment after a strategic error from Ferrari while Leclerc suffered a crash on his first hot lap in Q3.

The Monegasque and the Briton had a great start, moving up the order by a few places, but they were unable to climb any higher than P8 and P9 on a track which usually favoured Ferrari’s cars in recent seasons.

After the last two rounds at Monza and Baku where teams ran an extremely low-downforce setup, the Marina Bay Circuit will prompt the F1 field revert to a high-downforce aerodynamic configuration.

Asked whether this characteristics of the Singapore track puts a smile on his face, Leclerc reckoned that he does not expect his SF-25 to be much more competitive than it was in Baku last time out.

„I don’t think we can expect any miracles. I don’t think we were, I mean, again in Baku, I don’t think we were uncompetitive. We didn’t do a good job in qualifying and we failed to put everything together and to put a lap in Q3, obviously, but I don’t think we expect to be more competitive here.

„I think it should be similar to Baku. If anything, I feel like McLaren will have even more of an advantage on a track like this, so we might be a bit further away to McLaren.

„However, compared to our main competitors, which are Mercedes, we should be in a better place if it stays warm, which I think it will,” the Monegasque added.

Comparing Singapore to Hungary where he grabbbed a surprise pole position in ’weird’ conditions, Leclerc said that it is „unlikely” that he will be able to repeat that result at the Marina Bay Circuit.

„Well, I hope the same happens. But in Hungary, it’s a session I still struggle to understand. There were swings of seven tenths from Q1 to Q2 to Q3, and nobody really understood that session.

„To be on pole on such a difficult session was nice, but I don’t expect the conditions to be the same this weekend. It’s unlikely, but I’ll do everything to reproduce that. That would be amazing, but it’s unlikely.”