Leclerc waves away Saudi overtaking fears

Charles Leclerc is confident the Jeddah Corniche Circuit will offer plenty of overtaking opportunities during its inaugural F1 weekend.

Street circuits seldom provide chances to pass rivals and despite a flowing layout for Saudi Arabia's first foray into hosting an F1 event, concerns have been voiced over the high-speed nature of the track and whether braking zones will be long enough to achieve an overtake.

A saving grace for on-track excitement could be the addition of three DRS zones, allowing drivers to hang onto the back of cars in front and be potentially granted an opportunity further down the line.

“There are a lot of DRS zones and they are very, very long," said Leclerc.

"I think one-third of the track is with DRS so I don’t think that overtaking is going to be extremely difficult like we are used to on a city track.

“But I definitely believe it is going to be a very challenging track for us drivers, a very high-speed [layout] with the walls so obviously no room for mistakes so it is going to be a tricky one but I’m looking forward to it.”

With only two races remaining, Ferrari is ahead of McLaren by 39.5 points in the constructors' championship fight for third.

McLaren has often been stronger on high-speed layouts this season with a one-two finish in Monza a highlight but Ferrari took strides forward with its recently introduced upgraded engine.

On what he is expecting from the circuit, Leclerc explained: "I will have to do some real laps tomorrow, not only simulator laps, to have a better picture of what is going to happen this weekend.

“But yeah, definitely the new engine is going to help us in the right direction.

"Whether it is going to be enough to be better than McLaren this weekend…it is going to be difficult.

“I feel like they are going to be strong this weekend but we never know.”

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