Charles Leclerc, who will be switching to Ferrari next season, has spoken on enhanced performance of Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team.
The team splendidly managed to mark their presence on the tracks in the final part of this Formula 1 season.
Leclerc believes that the enhancement in the team performance is not because of the up-gradation program. Rather, it has resulted because of their setup optimization.
Moreover, he also informed that the car development program was ceased early in 2018.
Sauber started the season while fighting with Williams for a better position on the grid.
However, the latter had failed to improve on track while Sauber managed to establish itself as one of the competitors to fetch a position in top 10.
The team has become a threat to Racing Point Force India. Sauber surprisingly rose to eighth position in constructors championship while tailing the Force India with just six points to cover.
“The baseline of the car this year is good, I just think in the first three races we didn’t use the full potential,” said Leclerc.
“Once we understood how to balance this car we really did a huge step up. Then we made some improvements during the season also that made it even better.
“The car is very impressive compared to last year, you can see that in the results.
“We have stopped the updates on the car since quite a bit [of time ago] and we are still keeping the same performance, as are the teams that are trying to push a little bit.
“So it’s definitely a strong car.”
Leclerc performed astonishingly with its Sauber, where he finished at seventh position thrice in five races. Marcus Ericsson along with him managed to find a place in Q3 at the last two GP’s.
The Monégasque’s performance has earned him a place alongside with Sebastian Vettel in 2019. He was also surprised by the performance of the team which has managed to find their way on charts without compromising next year development
“I don’t think we expected to have such a good end of the season [after] expecting the end of development process for this year’s car so early on,” said the 21-year-old.
“It’s definitely looking good for them for next year because they’ve had quite a bit of time to develop the car.”
