i strongely believe that Naruto and the genins will fail this mission, it'd be stupid if they dont. They will get far but it definatly wont be a victory for them.
if it ends up being Naruto vs Sasuke - Sasuke either wont lose or will escape, theres no way Naruto will kill him or even bring him back to the leaf.
Also it seems that there are much stronger members of the sound team to contend with which brings up the issue of even if Naruto does catch up with Sasuke theres a big chance of everyone being too wounded to even do anything about it.
i wont mention anything but look closely at the last page of the recent manga, look at the stance and where a certain object is - its obvious that theres going to be a turn around in the next chapter