Leclerc: Ferrari’s lack of pace is a surprise

Charles Leclerc says the lack of pace Ferrari have had at Suzuka so far is a surprise for himself and team.

The Italian team have dominated in recent times, taking pole position in the last four races and winning three of them.

However, it was a different story in Friday practice at the Japanese GP with Mercedes comfortably topping both sessions, while Ferrari ended the day behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

“I think we made the most out of our day, which was the most important,” Leclerc said via Crash.net.

“But it seems we are lacking pace this weekend, which is a bit of a surprise because at the end we were very strong in the last four races.”

Not the easiest of days today. Lots of work to do for qualifying and the race but we've got one whole day to analyse everything before getting back in the car on Sunday🌪
📸: @KymIllman pic.twitter.com/cmXw8rXUdR

— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) October 11, 2019

With qualifying being pushed back to Sunday morning due to Typhoon Hagibis, Ferrari have more time to get things right before then, but the Monegasque isn’t optimistic.

“We expected to be quite good here, but it’s less this case. We will be working to prepare at its best for qualifying on Sunday,” Leclerc added.

“The balance is not that bad, we are just lacking speed. There’s a little bit in driving too. I expect it to be hard to catch Mercedes in front.”

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