Leclerc predicts Ferrari on course to catch Red Bull

Charles Leclerc insists that it's just "a matter of time" before Ferrari is able to catch the dominant Red Bull team at the front of the field.

The Italian squad has been 'best of the rest' in both of the first two races of 2024, with Carlos Sainz on the podium in the season opener in Bahrain and Leclerc himself finishing third in Saudi Arabia.

Leclerc lined up alongside Max Verstappen on the front row of the grid in both races, but was unable to get ahead of the Red Bull into the first corner on either occasion.

But overall it's been a much stronger start to the current season for Ferrari than it had been 12 months earlier, raising hopes that the team is finally closing the gap with their rivals.

"I think we are doing small steps in the right direction," Leclerc said after last week's race. "If I look back over the last six, seven months, we are the team that has improved the most and we are slowly closing the gap.

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"The gap is still quite big, but if we keep working like that then I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we put the Red Bull under a bit more pressure," he told Formula1.com and other media in the Jeddah paddock.

Despite his confidence, Leclerc was careful to manage expectations and not get carried away with how things are going, suggesting there is unlikely to be any further immediate progress at the next race in Australia.

"I don't think we'll have many things new in Melbourne," he acknowledged. "So without new things in Melbourne, I think we are doing a good job by maximising our package at the moment.

"So that's where we are," he said. "We'll probably have to wait and see whenever we have new parts to the car, what kind of step we do forward. Hopefully that will bring us closer to Red Bull."

Leclerc explained that it all came down to chipping away at things that would give then an extra tenth or even just a few hundredths of a second on track.

"Three or four tenths is a lot in the world of motorsport," he told Sky Sports F1. "When you look at every part of the car, if you are gaining 0.010s per part then you are straight away gaining that.

"In the last few months, we are the team that has improved the most," he argued. "We have been working extremely well and we just have to keep doing that. It's very clear which areas we have to work on.

"I'm sure that our moment will come," he added. "I don't know what Red Bull has in the pocket in terms of upgrades, but that will define when exactly we'll be able to match them."

Just two races into a marathon 24-event season, Red Bull already have a 38 point lead over Ferrari in the constructors championship after Verstappen and Sergio Perez clinched a perfect 1-2 finish in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Verstappen leads the drivers standings on 51 points after missing out on the bonus point for fastest lap last week, with Perez on 36 points ahead of Leclerc who is third with 28 points followed by George Russell and Oscar Piastri.

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