Leclerc concedes Ferrari Bahrain pace is below expectations

Charles Leclerc has conceded he expected more from Ferrari in Bahrain after both he and team-mate Sebastian Vettel failed to finish inside the top-ten in any of the three practice sessions.

Leclerc has dropped further down the order in each practice session of the weekend so far, ending practice one 11th, the second session 14th and the Saturday morning run 15th.

The Monégasque driver remains firmly in the mix to finish fourth in the drivers' standings and is currently only three points off Sergio Perez who currently occupies the position.

Asked to assess the sessions, Leclerc explained: "I expected a bit better because normally it is a very strong track for the team in the past few years but this weekend we seem to struggle quite a bit more."

As well as fighting for individual honours, a strong showing in the Turkish GP thrust Ferrari into the battle for third in the constructors' championship.

The Scuderia trail Racing Point by 24 points with McLaren and Renault also involved in the battle, but Ferrari finished behind all six cars of their rivals in final practice.

On the improvements Ferrari need to find before qualifying, he added: "Just the balance basically because throughout the corners it is very tricky.

"We go from oversteer to very big understeer and its quite difficult to manage the car at the moment.

"I made quite a few mistakes and also my driving wasn't very good on Friday so hopefully all of this will be good on Saturday and we will manage to get a good result.

"We are all very, very close and anything we can gain will be a big advantage."

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