Fearing that the Ferrari isn't good enough for pole position, Charles Leclerc still believes the team can be in the mix.

Not only was the SF-23 out-paced by the Red Bull, it didn't have the pace of the Aston Martin.

Like a number of its rivals the Maranello outfit eschewed the softs in FP1 due to the fact that the session is unrepresentative of qualifying and the race. However, when it did fit the red-banded rubber late in FP2 Leclerc was 0.460s off the pace and Sainz over a second.

While single-lap pace in testing was strong, the team was known to be hard on its tyres, furthermore it wasn't exactly an easy day for the Italian team with Sainz losing track time after a major spin in the opening session, and Leclerc having to abandon his new rear wing after it became unstable.

"I don't think we have the performance maybe for pole, but we can be in the mix," the Monegasque subsequently told reporters. "Whenever we have races that are a bit more difficult we should be here and try to take every opportunity so that's what we'll try and do this weekend."

Despite his apprehension, the youngster says the SF-23 is an improvement on a week ago.

"On my side in testing, it's been very, very inconsistent in the way we run the car," he said, "because we were testing loads of things, so I didn't have much time to put the car to my liking, which I did today, and I think that went really well.

"On the other hand, it seems that, again what we thought was confirmed, Red Bull seemed quite a bit ahead compared to everyone.

"Aston seems very strong too," he added. "But let's wait and see. For now, we need to focus on ourselves, try to gain a little bit of performance overnight and hopefully have a great qualifying."

Asked if he thought track conditions had played into Aston Martin's hands, he replied: "I hope so! I don't know. It's still early days. I maybe think that Aston is a bit quicker today than what they will be tomorrow, but again, let's wait and see."

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