"They're in a stronger position to improve the car" - Ferrari tipped to be better than Mercedes in improving car performance this season

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has said that Ferrari are in a much better position to improve their car and performance compared to rivals Mercedes this season.

Ferrari trail their German rivals by 30 points and are fourth in the constructor's championship, just behind Mercedes. However, Windsor reckons the Prancing Horses would have a higher ceiling in terms of development throughout this season than Mercedes.

During his recent Live Stream on his YouTube channel, the Briton said:

"Charles Leclerc is quite capable of winning a Grand Prix if a few things fall his way and Ferrari does make some improvements, which they might. They're in a stronger position to improve the car than Mercedes if Mercedes go the route of completely revising their car because they would have used up all their budget cap."

He continued:

"Ferrari have a pretty clean sheet of paper in terms of where they go next with that car. They've got quite a lot of scope in either direction, as none of them are going to be really radical in terms of development."

---

"We are fully motivated to get back on top" - Ferrari's Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc has said that the team will use the April break to bring in new upgrades and develop their car for the season ahead. He told F1.com:

“I think in the situation we are in as a team; we take this as an opportunity to work as much as possible during this break in order to get upgrades as quickly as possible and be as competitive as we want sooner in this season. It’s still a very, very long season. We are fully motivated to get back on top, and we’ll try to use these weeks (before Azerbaijan) in the best way possible.”

He continued:

“We know the story about last year, and now it’s all about focusing on what we can do better to improve and to come back to their (Red Bull’s) level. We know where we need to work on, and now we just need to make it happen.

"We seem to be quite good in terms of qualifying whenever the peak grip is there, but then whenever we lose a little bit of grip in the race, it starts to be very, very difficult, and we seem to lose quite a lot of performance, so on that we need to work.”

It will be interesting to see if the upgrades bring Ferrari closer to the top and in contention to challenge for race wins.