19/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Qualifying just 0.155s off Sergio Perez' pace, Charles Leclerc still insists that the gap to the Red Bulls is bigger than it looks.
Of course, other than the fact that a driveshaft failure meant that Max Verstappen wasn't there to blitz the field, there remains widespread doubt that Ferrari is running its engines at full power due to fears over reliability.
Nonetheless, Leclerc, who qualified second but will start the race from sixth row following his grid penalty, insists the gap to the Red Bulls is bigger than it looks.
"I put everything in to my lap but I feel like the gap we are seeing from Checo to myself is not the real one," he said, "I think the gap is much bigger than that.
"Eventually my goal is to beat the Red Bull," he continued, "it's not to finish second or third or fourth or whatever. So there is still a lot of work to do to before getting to their level.
"We have a ten-place grid penalty," he added, "so I will be starting the race a bit on the back foot but I will do absolutely everything to come back to the front.
"We will also have Max behind," smiled the youngster, who fought a race-long cat and mouse battle with the Dutchman here last year, "but the Red Bulls are in a league of their own for now so I'm pretty sure that he will come back quite quickly to the front.
"For us we will try and focus on ourselves, we are more or less in the same race pace of Alpine, Mercedes and Aston Martin so it should be a good fight, but let's wait and see."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Jeddah here.