Charles Leclerc has admitted that his - soon to depart - teammate is doing a better job this season.

Despite missing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix due to requiring an appendectomy, the Spaniard is only 4 points behind Leclerc, having won in Melbourne, twice out-qualified the Monegasque and scored three successive podiums finishes.

"I think it's as simple as he's doing a better job," Leclerc told reporters at today's press conference in Shanghai.

"In Bahrain it's difficult to compare because on my side I was facing issues," he continued, "and I think it was a very strong weekend apart from that, on my side. However in the last two races he's just been stronger. So it's up to me now to work, especially in the qualifying phase, which is normally a strength. I've been struggling to put the lap together.

Indeed, in Australia Leclerc qualified fifth and as Suzuka a lowly eighth.

"It's a very fine line to get it right or completely wrong on the out-lap and getting the tyres in the right window," he admitted, "and for now I have been struggling more than what Carlos has done.

"He's driving at a very high level, which I think is great for the team. It's great for me as well. I've been working a lot on that and normally when I work on points I'm quite confident on improving pretty quickly. So I'm not worried, but obviously now I need to show that on track starting from tomorrow in qualifying."

Ironically, as it stands, Sainz is out of a job next season as his seat is to be taken by Lewis Hamilton, and while the Spaniard is being strongly linked with Audi when it enters the sport in 2026 the big question is where he goes next season.

As for the coming weekend, as F1 returns to Shanghai for the first time since 2019, Leclerc believes the Scuderia will be competitive.

"On paper I think it's a track where we could be a bit stronger compared to Suzuka... but we'll just approach it the same way.

"I still think that Red Bull will have the upper hand this weekend," he added, "we'll just have to focus on ourselves because it can be very easy, as we've seen, especially in qualifying in Suzuka, if you don't do a good job on Saturday and then you don't start from fourth to fifth, but you go from fourth to eighth."

This being a Sprint weekend, the Monegasque admits that it is going to be vital to be up to pace from the get-go.

"It's going to be very important, especially on a sprint weekend," he said, "we've got two qualifying sessions to extract the maximum out of the car on both.

"Then, in the race, I think we are quite strong this year."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Shanghai here.