Charles Leclerc is reserving judgment on what appears to be a revival from Ferrari following its dismal start to the F1 season.
For the first seven grands prix, the Scuderia struggled with its SF-23 which occasionally offered glimpses of its potential over one lap but fell away during a race due to suffering high degradation with its tyres.
In Spain, Leclerc endured the nadir of his campaign to date as he was left mystified by a bizarre anomaly with the car that left him starting 19th on the grid and finishing 10th in the race.
For the next race in Canada, Ferrari unveiled a raft of updates, yet another poor qualifying for the team in mixed conditions led to Leclerc and team-mate Carlos Sainz starting 10th and 11th respectively.
In the race, however, there were promising signs as the duo staged a recovery to take the chequered flag in fourth and fifth.
With a new front wing and floor for the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc pushed Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to the wire, finishing just 0.048s adrift to net his first front-row start of the year for the race, whilst Sainz lines up third.
Leclerc, however, is cautious as to what might unfold on Sunday. He said: “Very, very close to pole position, which is a good sign. I don’t think we expected to be so close to the Red Bulls, so it’s a good step forward
“But we all know that our weakness is the race, so we are waiting for the race to try and see if we can confirm the positive signs we saw in Montréal.
“All the effort has been made to make our race pace better, so it is great to be on the front row, and great to be close again to pole position, or at least fighting for it.
“On the other hand, we still need to wait, because the points are scored on Sunday, and since the beginning of the season, that’s where the struggles have been for us.
“But the team has done a great job by putting so much effort into bringing the upgrades earlier than planned, and that helped us to have a good feeling with the car.”
The front row is the same as last year, from which Leclerc managed to beat Verstappen by just 1.532s at the chequered flag.
As to whether Leclerc can pull off a repeat, he said: “Race pace looked quite good in Montréal.
“But consistency is where we need to focus so we really have to see on Sunday if we’ve got the same pace as in Montréal.
“For now, Red Bull is quicker on race day, so it’s going to be difficult, but if we can put them in difficulty we’ll do it all.”
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