Ferrari brought a revised floor and front wing to this weekend's Red Bull Ring sprint event as part of its strategy to fast-track plenty of smaller upgrades.
The revised package appeared to give Leclerc and Sainz an immediate boost after just a single free practice session to dial them in on Friday, as the pair qualified in the top three behind Red Bull's polesitter Max Verstappen.
"I don't think we expected to be so close to the Red Bulls, so it's a good step forward," said Leclerc after conceding just 0.048s to the Dutchman.
"First of all, I would like to thank all the guys back at the factory. It's only qualifying but the work they've done in the last two, three weeks in order to bring the package earlier than what it was planned was really, really impressive. And that helped us to have a good performance today.
"It feels good to finally have a clean qualifying again and to be back on the front row, the feeling has been a bit better in the last few races.
"I've managed to put everything that I wanted in the last lap of Q3, very close to Max but not enough today."
But while Ferrari has looked impressive on one-lap pace in 2023, it has struggled with race pace consistency and tyre wear on higher downforce circuits.
Source: Autosport