Charles Leclerc believes that there is 'still some work to do' for Ferrari to catch Red Bull, after completing his milage during Formula 1 pre-season testing. The Ferrari driver ended testing at the top of the timesheets having clocked up 67 laps and focusing on performance, with the team having spent the first day trialling 'extreme' setups on the car to correlate data for future development. Leclerc feels the SF-23 will be stronger in the straight lines compared to its predecessor, but admits he was struggling in the corners where the car visibly looked challenging to drive. "I think our car changed with a bit of characteristics this year. I expect us to be a bit quicker in the straight and maybe struggling a bit more in the corners," Leclerc told media, including RacingNews365.com . "With this three day test I can say that we are still working quite a bit on trying to find the sweet spot of the car in terms of setup. So there is, I hope, some margin on that still."
Leclerc: It's a different car. You have to drive it differently.
One of the main areas that the SF-75 struggled with was tyre degradation, which plagued the team throughout the 2022 season alongside their poor reliability. Leclerc admits he has been trying "different driving styles" during testing with the SF-23, but believes the team still has work to do to extract the most from the car. "It is a different car, you need to drive it a little bit differently. But that's what testing is for. I've been trying a lot of different driving styles. "I seemed to have find my way a little bit this this morning, finally. But we still have some work to do."
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