Charles Leclerc has stated that Ferrari's biggest weakness across the opening rounds of the year has been its power unit.
The Italian squad hoped to enter the sport's new era with a car that could compete for race wins.
However, Mercedes has emerged at the head of the pecking order with a large gap to the rest of the competition.
While Ferrari has been able to bag a podium at each of the opening three rounds, it has not had enough pace to challenge Mercedes, with the deficit coming from its power unit.
“Doing a step back on those first three races, there’s a clear thing that we need to improve and this is surely the power unit,” Leclerc told media including RacingNews365.
“But we obviously cannot bring anything to Miami.”
The F1 cars have been built under a brand-new set of technical regulations this year, with changes made to both the power units and aerodynamics.
As a result, Leclerc predicted the rate of improvement will be “massive” throughout the grid.
“But there’s not only that, and in a year like this one, everything is very new,” he said.
“I think the rate of improvement of every team is massive, so there’s a lot more than just the power unit.
“There’s putting the tyres in the right window, there’s the aero, there’s the chassis, and on that we’ll work flat out in order to try and close the gap as much as possible to the Mercedes and to hopefully keep behind the McLaren, and then we’ll see.
“The power unit is maybe our main weakness at the moment, but there are many other things that can definitely influence and help us to close the gap in the meantime.”
Originally published by RacingNews365 —
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