During FP1, the only dry Friday session, Melbourne winner Carlos Sainz set the best time of the Ferrari duo during a short flurry of hot laps conducted on softs but was nonetheless 0.213s shy of Max Verstappen's headline effort.
In the meantime, Leclerc was eclipsed by both McLarens and stacked up sixth in the overall FP1 order, a quarter of a second away from his team-mate over his lap.
The Monegasque hoped that he would be able to unearth a "special lap" in Saturday's qualifying session to put his Ferrari on pole for the first time in 2024, but reckoned that Red Bull had the upper hand after the opening day of running.
"I'll do my best [to fight for pole]. This is the target for sure. But in order to do so we need to make sure that we are prepared in the best possible way for tomorrow," Leclerc said.
"And at the moment, I still feel like we are lacking a little bit of pace to go and challenge for pole position because Red Bull seems strong, and especially Max until now.
"There's still quite a bit of work to do. But if there's a special lap to be done, I hope I'll be the one to do it."
Source: Autosport