Are Ferrari watching McLaren as much as Red Bull? Leclerc reveals!

McLaren has been the fastest team on the field for a while now, and of course, that draws the attention of other F1 teams. Under the leadership of Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing has been heavily focused on McLaren's technology. But how much time does Ferrari spend monitoring other teams?

Last year, McLaren managed to introduce an update around halfway through the season that immediately made the British team the fastest. As we approach the end of a technical era, this can be seen as a remarkable achievement.

Under the leadership of Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing has been heavily involved with McLaren's technologies and has frequently questioned, for example, how the British racing stable could maintain such good tire management.

In Zandvoort, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, in the presence of among others, GPblog was asked whether Ferrari spends a lot of time monitoring and reviewing other F1 teams. Leclerc explained that it is mainly important that the Italian team itself comes up with improvements.

How much time does Ferrari spend monitoring other F1 teams?

"That's a very good question,” the Monegasque began. “It’s true to say that the paddock is a very small world. Every year, some mechanics and engineers move from one team to another, so you kind of hear things and that gives you a direction. Then you try to think in which way they could achieve that.”

Charles Leclerc during the media day in Zandvoort

"Also, you guys [the media] are a big part of trying to find things out for us, and that gives us hints. But our main job is to try and anticipate and to be on top of those things and to be the first to lead development in something that hasn’t been done before. Because if you just follow, then you end up being second best."

"I’d say there’s not that much energy, but when you have, especially at the end of an era, a team that makes such a step – like McLaren did – then obviously all teams are trying to understand what’s going on and what they found to be so dominant this year. It’s in the back of our minds, but what we are focusing on is trying to be leading in that development and trying to find ourselves the solutions that nobody has found yet," said Leclerc.

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