Charles Leclerc feels Ferrari will struggle to compete with Mercedes in Monaco this weekend, saying a “solid second would be great” for the team after a difficult day of ꦛpractice 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 Sebastian Vettel finished third, but was a distant seven-tenths of a s🍸econd behind pa𝕴ce-setter Lewis Hamilton.

Leclerc explained how he felt a drop in perfo⛄rman𒐪ce between the two practice 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 bit better,” Leclerc said.

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

“But we ar💎e not on the level of Mercedes either, so we need to push hard, and we wไill see on Saturday.”

Asked if beating Mercedes ꦗor on♔ly Red Bull was the target for Ferrari, Leclerc said: “I think a solid second 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 with Mercedes.”

Leclerc said he had experienced “quite a bit” of graining on his tyres through practice, echoing Vettel’s recent thoughts about F🙈errari’s struggles.

“I tཧhink it’s a mat💛ter of putting these tyres in the right window, which we clearly don’t do at the moment,” Leclerc said.

“So we need to work on this.”