Charles Leclerc feels that no "miracle" exists to enable Ferrari to leapfrog Red Bull in the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. Leclerc bagged a pair of third place finishes in Friday's two practice sessions, but crashed heavily in FP2 at Turn 7. Fortunately for him, only the right-front corner of the car sustained damage, with the new upgrades Ferrari have brought remaining undamaged on his SF-23 machine. And while the Monegasque believes they can match Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez over a single lap in qualifying, doing so in the race will prove almost impossible - owing in part to the high tyre wear rate on the Ferrari.
Leclerc's problems
"In terms of race pace, I don't think we have any miracle in hand to close the gap," he explained to media. "I don't think we will be much closer [to Red Bull]. "The feeling is pretty good over one lap, but in the race, we are so far behind Red Bull, who are in a league of their own. "In the race we definitely have a lot of time to find, but in qualifying pace, we are more or less there." With track conditions ramping up as more rubber was laid down, Leclerc got a tank-slapper at Turn 7, turned into the slide, but the car then regained grip and spat him into the outside barrier despite his best attempts to brake and avoid the collision. The Monegasque put the off simply down to a lack of grip. "Overall, it is very tricky because there's only one line and whenever you get offline, there's really poor grip," he said. "Basically that is what happened: I pushed too much, lost the rear trying to recover from it but I had no room to turn the car, so that was it, but there's no big damage. "Obviously the right front is gone, but apart from that, there was no damage to the rear of the car, which is the most important, and tomorrow is another day, and I am sure it will go well."
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