Championship leader Charles Leclerc is excited to head to Italy for the first European race of the season in Imola as Ferrari get set to race in front of the Tifosi, but he has issued a word of warning to the Scuderia.
Leclerc has won two of the opening three rounds of the season, and finds himself 34 points clear of George Russell in the Drivers’ Standings while Max Verstappen, who won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, is sixth due to “unacceptable” reliability failures in Bahrain and Australia.
Points-wise, it has been Ferrari’s best ever start to a season, so the race at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, coupled with the exquisite performance of the F1-75, presents them with a fine opportunity to take their first win in Bologna since Michael Schumacher’s victory in 2006.
As such, the 24-year-old is looking forward to the weekend, but warns his team against any over-exuberance.
“Italy, for us, it’s always incredible so I can’t wait to be there,” he said, as quoted by RaceFans.
“On the other hand, I will push the team, even though they know it, we don’t need to arrive there with a mindset of trying to do.
“We’ve been working extremely well from the beginning of the season and I want to keep that and not to overdo it for our home race. So we need to try to manage that in the best way possible.”
The Scuderia are expected to maintain the same, or at least a very similar, spec car to the one that has brought the so much joy in the opening rounds of the season, this weekend due to the sprint event.
They would only have one practice session available to them to experiment with new parts, so team principal Mattia Binotto affirmed that nothing major will be implemented.
“Imola is not the right weekend to bring upgrades,” he said, as quoted by the Italian edition of Motorsport.com.
“We have decided to not bring anything significant. We are working on ‘porpoising’ as it has a small impact on performance in Melbourne.
“If we have something ready, we will try it in the practice session.”
Ferrari also enter the weekend fresh off the news that Carlos Sainz has signed a new deal with them that keeps him at Maranello until at least the end of 2024.