Leclerc spies 'best shot' for Ferrari pole so far

After what the team itself described as an "encouraging start" for Ferrari, Charles Leclerc said that he felt he has his "best shot" of taking pole so far this year in this weekend's Australian GP.

Leclerc started on the front row for both of the first two races of 2024 in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but hasn't managed to beat Max Verstappen to pole so far. “I'd say we're in a better position than the first two races," he said.

The Ferrari was fastest at the end of the day's practice sessions on Friday and was almost four tenths quicker than the championship leader in the Red Bull, leaving the Monegasque feeling positive about his prospects.

“It feels good for now," he said after setting the day's best time of 1:17.277s. "It was a solid first day, everything felt good from the start and I was comfortable in the car.

"We’ve had a positive day from the first laps in FP1 to the end of FP2, so that’s a good start.

• Read also: Leclerc comfortably leads second practice in Melbourne for Ferrari

“However we need to keep working very hard, because I’m sure that we’ll see some surprises tomorrow," he cautioned. "There’s no reason for us to be a bit in front compared to everyone else tomorrow.

"There’s still margin to improve in some things," he added. "Our race run was pretty good, which is encouraging, but let’s keep working.”

Leclerc was one of many drivers to find the windy conditions challenging on Friday. Among those caught out was Verstappen who went off track in FP1 and damaged the floor of the RB20 costing him time in FP2 as repairs were made.

“Everything is very tricky,” Leclerc explained. “It’s a very challenging track with quite high kerbs and the wind as well. There’s also only one line, whenever you get a bit off line then you lose a lot of grip.

"But it makes it quite fun," he added. "So for now, we are fast so we are enjoying it - we just need to wait and see tomorrow if we are as fast.

“The race pace looked quite strong, but again it’s very difficult to compare because some drivers had a lot of traffic while we had relatively clean laps,” he pointed out.

"It looked quite good. Better that it looks good on Friday than the other way around! However, Red Bull weren’t pushing yet.

"We’ve got to wait and see where their potential is at, I think they are still ahead. But we might have our best shot [at pole and victory] this weekend from the beginning of the season.

"The most important thing for us to do tomorrow will be to go with the track and anticipate what the evolution will be like," he explained. "We will focus on optimising our balance and try to make a step forward before qualifying.

"It looks good for now but we have to wait and see how it will look tomorrow, I expect the field to be much tighter."

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