Here's the thing about Charles Leclerc and Ferrari heading into the Mexico City Grand Prix: the momentum is real, but the margin for error is practically nonexistent. Arriving on the back of two runner-up finishes in Singapore and Austin, the team has turned an upturn in form into genuine optimism. Yet, Leclerc isn't buying into any talk that the Scuderia are the team to beat.
"It's getting very close and we have good momentum with Singapore and Austin," Leclerc said during Thursday's media day in Mexico City. "We have maximised our potential and I was relatively happy with the pace we've shown. Whether we are the favourites this weekend, I don't fully agree, I think Mercedes remain the favourites wherever we go."
We just struggle a bit more compared to the others to just keep everything in the right window.
Add Red Bull into that mix as a very strong recent force, and the battle at the top looks brutally tight. But Leclerc knows the biggest fight Ferrari faces might just be against their own machinery. The red car has only taken one victory so far this year, coming at the British Grand Prix back in July, and the Monegasque driver is still hunting his first pole position of the season despite his fearsome reputation on Saturdays.
That qualifying Achilles' heel comes down to a razor-thin operating window for the tyres. "We've got a strong car but a car that is very sensitive whenever we get off the optimum window and we've paid a little bit the price recently in Q3, particularly when the track temperatures are going down," Leclerc explained, pointing directly to how they lost a front row in Austin when it mattered most. "We just struggle a bit more compared to the others to just keep everything in the right window."
Whether a short-term fix exists remains an open question, but the team's focus is locked squarely on getting Saturday right. If they manage to nail that elusive window, the prize is waiting. But as Leclerc made crystal clear, "we've got to be perfect."
