‘Track work will be very important this year’

Practice sessions will be more important than usual this year, says Charles Leclerc, as teams won’t have breaks between race weekends to develop the cars.

Earlier this week Formula 1 chief Chase Carey revealed his plans for the 2020 season’s schedule.

Formula 1 is hoping to get in as many as 18 races over a five-and-a-half month period starting in July.

Bosses have targeted a double-header in Austria before moving onto Silverstone, spending just over two months in Europe then Asia, the Americas and finishing with Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.

It will be a hectic schedule with possibly one weekend off a month, leaving the teams very little time to develop their cars in the factories.

As such Leclerc says all of that will need to be done on race weekends during the practice sessions.

Ferrari especially needs to develop its car after realising in pre-season testing that the SF1000 was lacking compared to the Mercedes and Red Bull challengers.

“We’ve been struggling a bit during testing,” he told Autosport. “So we need to catch up.

“Whether we’ll be able to or not, I don’t know but last year, we’ve had a good progression throughout the year.

“I think we need to keep working as we did last year. And I’m pretty sure the results will come.

“But it is going to be a difficult season for everyone, because as soon as it starts it is not going to stop. And we won’t have any breaks to develop the car more than the others.

“So I think the work on track will be extremely important and more than it has been every other year, because we’ll spend a lot of time on track whenever the season will restart.

“It’s going to be very important to be focused and ready from the first race on, and as drivers to give the right feedback to the team and try and help the team in the right direction straight away.”

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