Charles Leclerc fires clear warning to F1 rivals: ‘There’s quite a bit of lap time in there’

Charles Leclerc believes there’s still more to come from Ferrari despite showing impressive pace in Friday F1 practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Monegasque home hero was the man to beat in practice in Monte Carlo.

While Lewis Hamilton headed the timesheets in FP1, Leclerc dominated the second session.

At various stages of the session, Leclerc was nearly one-second clear of his nearest competitor, showing outstanding pace on the mediums especially.

Leclerc is without a victory since the middle of 2022 - and has struggled to get a good result on home soil over the years.

Reflecting on his day in Monaco, Leclerc felt “confident” about his chances.

“I think, on the mediums, we were strong,” he said. “On the soft, we struggled to put everything together. There was a lot of traffic.

“All in all, we have a good car for this moment. I feel confident. However, it’s important to keep this rhythm into FP3. The way Monaco is, I might have taken more risk compared the others today, which paid off.

“But it’s about tomorrow when everybody starts to go on the limit. Until now, we have done a really good job. We need to keep working, keep focusing on ourselves.

“There is more pace in me just putting everything together. Look at my sectors, there was a quite a bit of lap time in there. That is the focus for tomorrow. The performance and feeling is there.”

Leclerc acknowledged Hamilton’s turn of pace when assessing his main rivals ahead of qualifying.

“I think we arrived here knowing that anything was possible,” he added. ”As I said in 2021, we didn’t have a good car but coming into Monaco we were fast.

“Mercedes have been struggling since the beginning of the season but they are very fast. Lewis has been on it all day!  We have got to maximise everything tomorrow to hopefully put it on pole.

“I’ve had two poles, in the past, but then the Sunday race was not what I wanted. If we manage to do so, which is the best starting place for Sunday, we’d have to focus on Sunday to finally get that win.”