Sainz “doing a better job” than me at the moment

Charles Leclerc admitted he hasn’t been able to get as much out of his Ferrari as his team mate over the first races of the season.

Carlos Sainz Jnr is only four points behind Leclerc in the championship despite missing the second round due to illness. He finished on the podium in all three races he started and won the Australian Grand Prix.

Leclerc, who hasn’t qualified ahead of his team mate since the first round in Bahrain, admitted he hasn’t been as strong as usual over a single flying lap so far this season. “I think it’s as simple as he’s doing a better job,” said Leclerc in today’s FIA press conference.

“In Bahrain it’s difficult to compare because on my side I was facing issues 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. 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 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.”

Ferrari have offered the closest challenge to Red Bull since the season began. They finished immediately behind the two RB20s in Japan, Leclerc rising to fourth after qualifying eighth. He expects a closer fight between the two teams at the Shanghai International Circuit.

“On paper I think it’s a track where we could be a bit stronger compared to Suzuka,” he said. “But we’ll just approach it the same way.

“I still think that Red Bull will have the upper hand this weekend and 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 weekend’s round is a sprint event, meaning teams only have a single practice session to perfect their set-ups before qualifying begins. “It’s going to be very important, especially on a sprint weekend, we’ve got two qualifying [sessions]…