Leclerc blames top speed deficit for Ferrari's disappointing pace in Austria

Charles Leclerc admitted Ferrari faces an uphill battle at the Austrian Grand Prix after a disappointing opening day at the Red Bull Ring, with the Monegasque conceding that the Scuderia is simply not competitive enough at present and has significant work to do overnight.

Leclerc's Friday began at a disadvantage after missing the opening practice session, but he was quick to dismiss the suggestion that his lack of running was the primary reason for Ferrari's struggles.

"It’s not been an easy Friday I think, but not particularly from me," Leclerc explained afterwards. "Yes of course I missed FP1 and that’s never ideal, but you can still recover from a few less laps in FP1."

Instead, the Ferrari driver made it clear that the team's problems extend far beyond his reduced track time, admitting that the SF-25 simply lacks the pace to fight at the front.

"I think just as a team we don’t seem to be very competitive for now, so there’s a lot of work to be done on the car in order to make sure that we get back to a more reasonable place. But we’ll analyse and work very hard tonight, and hopefully tomorrow we can do a big step forward."

Ferrari arrived in Austria on the back of encouraging performances in recent races, highlighted by Lewis Hamilton's victory in Barcelona, leading many to believe the Scuderia had finally found consistent momentum. However, Friday's practice sessions suggested otherwise, and Leclerc admitted he was disappointed by the team's lack of performance.

He pointed to Ferrari's continuing weakness on the straights as a major concern: "As we've said I think yesterday, the straights are quite a lot and we are losing so much time down the straights."

While that weakness had already been anticipated before the weekend, Leclerc revealed that another issue had emerged during Friday's running.

"I think maybe we are a bit negatively surprised by our performance in the corners at the moment, because in the corners normally we are competitive and we are not that competitive at the moment, so this is the part to fix."

Ferrari has generally relied on strong cornering performance throughout the season to compensate for its lower straight-line speed, but that advantage appeared to disappear during the opening day in Spielberg. According to Leclerc, improving the car's performance through the corners will be the team's primary focus overnight.

However, he was far less optimistic about solving Ferrari's lack of straight-line speed: "I don’t think we have a fix though for the straight-line speed, and for that reason I think we’ll struggle this weekend."

The Monegasque also stressed that the disappointment was shared across both sides of the Ferrari garage, with neither driver satisfied by the balance or competitiveness of the car.

"It’s been a particularly difficult Friday for the team again, so I don’t think either Lewis or me are happy with the car at the moment. But yeah, we’ll work hard and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day."