apparently, he may have learned something during his training with Jiraiya, and Kishi literally forgor
(unless he really meant the nine tails power, but it´s not really clarified)
Part 2 Naruto is just next level pathetic. You can´t even say it´s about natural talent vs hard work, Sasuke literally just trained harder than him over the timeskip, and earned his place in the series at about a tier higher than Naruto. And let´s not even get started on how impotent and pathetic he is over the first half of it, just being completely reactionary to Sasuke and other characters, getting his teamates in near death situations because of how emotional he is, and contributing very little to make up for it. Yeah, it´s endearing at first that Naruto wants to save Sasuke, but after the third poorly defined mission, it just becomes pathetic, and is honestly a bad look on Tsunade and Jiraiya for even humoring it.
Meanwhile, first half of Ship, Sasuke is treated as a serious player by the likes of Obito, Orochimaru, Deidara, Danzo, even Pain. They all see Naruto as just some kid in comparison.