Leclerc:
“FP1 was good for us, but in FP2 Mercedes gradually started to show their potential and we began to see where we fall short compared to them.”
“I think they are very strong, especially in terms of race pace. I don’t know how much faster they can get in qualifying, but in terms of race pace they seem quite strong compared to us.”
“We have a lot of work to do, but I’m not focusing on that too much. There are a lot of things we need to improve on our car. I tried a pretty aggressive setup in FP2 and didn’t get the result I wanted, so tomorrow I’ll go back to a more reasonable setup range and see how it looks.”
“Oscar did a very impressive lap, but I don’t know what they were trying out between the cars, because Lando was quite far behind. Maybe they’re testing different things between the cars.”
“However, this is the first race with completely new cars, so there are still many question marks. In the longer runs, a clearer picture of everyone's performance is emerging now.”
“I hope I’m wrong and we’ll be much faster tomorrow, but right now Mercedes is a step ahead, followed by Red Bull, McLaren and then us.”
“We still have work to do, as I’ve always said, Melbourne and Shanghai are the two toughest tracks for me throughout the season, and I always push myself a bit harder here, which is a whole other challenge,”
“But that shouldn’t be an excuse. I’m enjoying this fight and I’ll work hard tomorrow to turn this situation around.”