Leclerc hopes new front wing for Spanish GP will be "turning point" for Ferrari

Leclerc hopes new front wing for Spanish GP will be “turning point” for Ferrari

Charles Leclerc is pinning his hopes for the rest of the season on a rule change which will come into force at round nine.

The FIA confirmed before the season began it will impose tougher stiffness checks on teams’ front wings from the ninth round of the championship in Spain.

Leclerc said Ferrari will have a new front wing design in time for that race and he hopes it will make them more competitive.

“I think we are behind in terms of actual performance of the car,” he explained after scoring his first podium finish of the season with third place on Sunday. “We are behind McLaren and Red Bull, for sure, behind Mercedes I believe also.

“On one hand, I’ve gone in the direction that I’ve been speaking of in the last two or three weekends and I feel like I’ve never been as much at ease with the car than I’ve been at the moment. So we are extracting the maximum out of the car.

“We just need a better car. And I think a turning point for the season will be in Barcelona, with a new front wing, I hope it can play a little in our favour.”

After beating Lando Norris to the final podium place by a second in Jeddah, Leclerc said there was no way he could have finished any higher.

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“I think, honestly, we did the perfect race,” he told the official F1 channel. “Today I don’t feel like there was anything more on the table.

“Every lap was really, really good. There were no mistakes. Strategy, perfect. Pit stop, again, perfect: we don’t talk much about our pit stops because whenever they go wrong, we obviously speak about it because you can lose a race with it, but the mechanics are doing an incredible job. I think we have been dominating the pit stop battle since the beginning of the season, and that’s thanks to the hard work they’ve done.

“But overall it’s been the perfect race and today I couldn’t do anything more than a P3.”