Leclerc: Ferrari 'struggling with pace due to degradation'

Charles Leclerc ended Friday somewhat concerned about Ferrari's race pace at the Yas Marina Circuit, heading into the season finale at Abu Dhabi.

Leclerc was third fastest in the first session, but that was with eight full time drivers sitting out the session in favour of young drivers.

Even though he maintained third in the twilight session, he was concerned by how slow the F1-75 felt on distance runs. He was almost half a second behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen when the chequered flag came out.

• Read also: Verstappen goes quickest, Russell second in Abu Dhabi second practice

"Overall, our sessions were okay," he insisted. "We struggled a bit with the race pace due to tyre degradation, which was expected. Our qualifying pace was a little better, but our competitors seem to be a step ahead.

“It was a clean Friday at least, which [for] a long time we didn’t have. This is good. On the other hand we seemed to lack a little bit of pace.

"We just need to try and find a little bit of performance for the race. That’s definitely where our focus will be. Whether it will be the case or not, I don’t know yet.”

He certainly wasn't ready to concede the weekend to Verstappen just yet. “The last lap of Max was really quick, but he put one more [set of soft tyres], so it’s difficult to compare.

"“The track is improving a lot in those conditions, especially when the night starts to come," he added. "We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see, but I believe it will be closer in the quali than the race.”

"We will use tomorrow’s practice to make further progress and give it our all for the last qualifying of the year."

Although he's no longer in the running for this year's drivers championship, this will be an important race for Leclerc as he bids to secure the runners-up spot behind Verstappen. He's currently tied on points with Sergio Perez.

Leclerc's team mate Carlos Sainz was among the full time drivers sitting out first practice. His seat was taken over for the session by Robert Shwartzman.

"It was a very busy FP2 for me after missing the first session," he said. "Obviously. FP1 was not very busy, I was just chilling in the garage!

"[FP2] was all about catching up and getting into the rhythm as soon as possible. A lot of work to do to get the car back into the sweet spot and myself used to the track and the grip that there is out there.

"The feeling on track wasn’t too bad," he continued. "But I know we’ve got plenty of margin to improve tomorrow.

“We should be in the mix, although Red Bull look like they are back on form and they should be the car to beat," he said. “Especially Max was super quick in the short run and in the long run; in every condition really

I think they are going to be tough to beat, but I think we’re going to be there in the fight with the Mercs and we should be okay," he added. "I’m looking forward to the last qualifying of the year."

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