Leclerc insists Ferrari still needs to improve despite encouraging opening day

On the back of a very strong weekend in Azerbaijan, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc insists that the Italian outfit will need to fine-tune the SF-24 if it wants to challenge for the top places.

Ferrari enjoyed a productive Friday in the heat and humidity of the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which hosted the first two hours of free practice for the Singapore Grand Prix, the 18th round of the Formula 1 World Championship.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were always front runners, first and third in the first session and second and third in the evening one, held under floodlights. The SF-24 performed well with both drivers who evaluated all three Pirelli compounds, as they worked in both qualifying and race trim.

The Monegasque topped the opening session before setting the second quickest lap in FP2.

Reflecting on his day, Leclerc said that Ferrari will need to make some tweaks to the setup of his SF-24 for the remainder of the weekend to find the perfect balance.

"The car felt good, but there’s still some work ahead of us to get it to feel exactly as I want it to. It was a good starting point, now we have to find the right balance and put it all together in qualifying tomorrow.

"The weather forecast for the rest of the weekend is changeable, so we will have to adapt very quickly. I would be surprised to see the same gap behind us again tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if the pecking order will change."

His team-mate Carlos Sainz ended the second session in an encouraging third spot, but he was far from happy with the behaviour of his car.

Having outbraked himself multiple times across the two sessions, the Spaniard labelled his start to the weekend as "challenging", claiming that something felt weird with the brakes.

'It’s been a challenging start to the weekend to be honest. Already in FP1 I could feel there was something not quite right with the brakes and we seemed to carry that into FP2, so I struggled to get the most out of the two sessions.

"Other than that, the car seems to be in a good window. I’m confident that we can figure out what happened today and make a big step tomorrow."