Leclerc braced for ‘difficult’ weekend at Zandvoort with Ferrari still facing ‘quite a bit of work’ to get back on form

Charles Leclerc reckons Ferrari could be in for a challenging Dutch Grand Prix weekend after he and the team experienced a low-key first day of practice at Zandvoort.

Following on from limited running in a wet/dry FP1 session, Leclerc placed ninth on the timesheets during a more representative FP2 – three quarters of a second off the pace set by George Russell.

FP2: Russell leads Piastri and Hamilton in tight second practice at Zandvoort

As well as both Mercedes and McLaren cars, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Haas’s Kevin Magnussen finished ahead of the Monegasque, who was left to assess where Ferrari are lacking.

It comes as the team try to recover from mid-season developments that brought back the unwanted side effect of bouncing, and have forced the Scuderia to carry out tests – and apply interim solutions – for several races.

“Tough!” Leclerc said of his day at the wheel. “As expected, I would say. We don’t quite have the pace of the guys in front, unfortunately.

“I think it’s better than what it looks like on the timesheet at the end of the day, but still not quite in the fight for the win, for sure.

“There’s quite a bit of work to do still. That’s what we are doing, but I hope it will pay off soon.”

READ MORE: Verstappen admits Red Bull simply ‘too slow’ as home hero ends Friday practice at Zandvoort searching for answers

Leclerc was then asked if the potential for further rain on Saturday – and during qualifying – could present himself and Ferrari with an opportunity to bridge the gap, to which he replied: “I really hope so. That’s the target.

“I will try to do something special in quali, but we are speaking of gaps at the moment that are a bit too big to do something special.

“If we manage to get within two, three-tenths, maybe there is something to be done. If not, I predict a difficult weekend for us.”

There were more problems for team mate Carlos Sainz, who could only complete a handful of laps in the dry FP2 session before a gearbox issue struck and ended his day.

“Basically no track running today,” Sainz lamented. “Only three laps in FP1 because of the weather, for everyone, but then in FP2, [when] everyone was looking to obviously catch up on what we lost in FP1, we had a gearbox issue.

MUST-SEE: Join Norris for a lap of Zandvoort with F1’s spectacular gyro cam

“We go into Saturday almost like a bit of a Sprint weekend, because we will only have one practice session to get up to speed and have a good weekend.

“I’m going to have to hit the ground running tomorrow in FP3, make sure that I’m immediately on the pace, and hopefully we can have still a good performance.”