Charles Leclerc Claims McLaren are 'On Another Planet' Despite Upgrades to the SF-25

"A big, big thank you to everyone back home for working so hard on bringing the upgrades, because it’s never an easy thing."

"It’s a lot of work that goes on in the wind tunnel and a lot of work that goes on in fabricating and putting together these floors."

“It’s just good to see that we’re taking steps forward. We’re trying to now extract more from it and I hope we can make the right steps overnight to tomorrow.”

Even though the upgrades are effective, Leclerc still believes that Ferrari has a significant gap between themselves and the rest of the field, especially the two powerful McLaren cars.

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“We’re just not fast enough," he said after FP2.

"When we look at the McLaren, they are just on another planet for now. It’s annoying, but it’s the way it is. "

"It actually motivates me to try and close that gap as soon as possible, but they are incredibly fast."

“With Mercedes, it seems that we are pretty much there. With Red Bull, it’s a bit more difficult; I think Max [Verstappen] had one less tyre compared to us in FP2, so I think he’s probably a bit in front."

Ferrari and Leclerc still have more performance to gain throughout the weekend and in the upcoming races, as it usually takes time to fully extract the potential from a brand new package.

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He remains hopeful that this is the case, with setup changes and new data potentially further bridging the gap between the team's performance and their expectations.

“I think there’s some performance still to be found on our side, maximising the car, the upgrade, and we’ll see where that leaves us tomorrow," he remarked.

“It’s just good to see that we’re taking steps forward. We’re trying to now extract more from it and I hope we can make the right steps overnight to tomorrow.”