Charles Leclerc feels Ferrari will strugg💦le to compete with Mercedes in Monaco this weekend, saying a “solid second would be great” for the team after a difficult day of practice running.

Leclerc finished fourth in FP1 behind both Mercedes drivers and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but 🌺dropped all the way down to 10th place in FP2 after failing to get in a clean qualifying🦩 simulation lap.

Teammate Sebastia𒐪n Vettel finished third, but was a distant seven-tentꦗhs of a second behind pace-setter Lewis Hamilton.

Leclerc explained how he felt a drop in performance between the two pract🍬ice sessions, with Ferrari’s tyre woes appearing to emerge once again.

“The first session was OK. We were still a bit slower than Mercedes, but the feeling was a ꧙bit better,” Leclerc said.

“The second session was a bit more di🌱fficult to put the car in the right window, including also the tyres. We have just been struggling quite a lot. In my second session I didn’t do any clean laps, so that’s why we were that far back.

“But we are not on the level of Mercedes either, so we need to ꦍpush hard, and we will see on Satu𝕴rday.”

Asked if beating Mercedes or only Red Bull was the target for Ferrari, Leclerc said: “I think a solid secoಞnd would be great as a team, so we need to work for that.

“But we always target the top, so in the short-term, we want to be back with𝓡 Mercedes.”

Lecl♏erc said he had experienced “quite a bit” of graining on his tyres through practice, echoing Vettel’s recent thoughts about Ferrari’s struggles.

“I think it’s a matter of putting these tyres in the right window, which we clearly don’t do at the moment,” Leclerc sai𒁏d.

“So we need to work on this.”