After Ferrari’s outstanding 1-2 at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc has hailed his team as the ‘most improved’ outfit this year. While the Monegasque finished behind his teammate, Carlos Sainz, the #16 driver still feels that there is scope for improvement for the Prancing Horse if they want to put an end to Max Verstappen’s dominance once and for all.
Speaking to Fox Sports Australia, Charles Leclerc explained, “We are still relatively far. However, if we look [at] the past seven-eight months for the team I think we are in a good place. We are the team that have done most improvements since last year. There’s still a lot of work to do but we have progressed more than anybody in the last few months.”
This time last year, Ferrari’s gap to Red Bull was much larger than today. However, at last weekend’s race, the SF-24 was pretty much on par with the RB20’s pace. In terms of handling, though, Ferrari were arguably ahead of Red Bull as Verstappen complained throughout the weekend about front graining and massive understeer.
Despite the Dutchman’s struggles during Friday and Saturday’s practice sessions, he was able to make it a hat-trick of poles in 2024 as he pipped Sainz by over two-tenths of a second in Q3. In the end, however, Sainz and Leclerc prevailed as Verstappen was forced to retire from the race after a brake system malfunction.
What made the Australian GP even more interesting was that even McLaren seemed to be on par with Red Bull and Ferrari. As a result, there is hope that the 2024 season could be a three-way title battle.
Is F1 gearing up for a three-way title fight between Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren?
If the Australian GP was anything to go by, the MCL38 could be a race-winning contender sooner rather than later. The one area that they need to work on is the low-speed corners.
Meanwhile, in those races when there are more high-speed corners, McLaren can potentially even challenge Red Bull and Ferrari for wins. However, on most of the upcoming tracks, Red Bull are still likely to dominate because of their superiority in the overall package.
