“Quite difficult” for Ferrari to match Mercedes - Leclerc

Charles Leclerc admits it is currently “quite difficult” for Ferrari to match the level of its Formula 1 rival Mercedes.

Mercedes has opened up a huge lead over Ferrari in both world championships after winning each of the first eight races of the 2019 season, with Lewis Hamilton heading a dominant Silver Arrows one-two finish at last weekend’s French Grand Prix.

Ferrari brought a number of updates to Paul Ricard in an attempt to reduce the deficit, but the results proved inconclusive. The Scuderia will continue its bid to find further pace in Spielberg this weekend by introducing further performance-related elements.

Asked if he feels confident that Ferrari can give Mercedes a harder time in Austria, Leclerc replied: “I think at the moment it’s quite difficult - they seem very quick.

“They were extremely quick at Paul Ricard, especially in the race-pace so I think we are focusing on ourselves and trying to do the best job possible but to be honest, it’s quite difficult to be at their level.”

Leclerc was quick to play down the fact he was able to finish within a second of Valtteri Bottas in France.

“Well I think he was struggling quite a bit on the second set of tyres with some blistering, weren’t and I think we managed quite well our race, so it shows that still everything is possible,” he said.

“But it’s very difficult, if they don’t run into issues it’s struggling for us to challenge them. So we are just trying to do the best with our races every time.

“On my personal side it was good to have a good weekend. We have been struggling a bit more so it was nice but we just need to keep working and doing that.”

“We will believe it until the end but of course we are all aware that the gap is quite big and it’s going to be very difficult to catch up, but we won’t give up until its mathematically impossible so we will give it everything.”