Charles Leclerc believes the perception that Ferrari has ahead of Mercedes during Formula 1 testing was “not right”.
The Scuderia was never far away from the top of the timesheets in pre-season, while the German manufacturer appeared to struggle initially before improving in the second week.
Since then Mercedes has dominated, scoring a record four straight 1-2 finishes, and though much of the focus has been on Ferrari’s supposed failure, Leclerc sees it differently.
“I think Mercedes were not that far [behind] even in testing in Barcelona,” the Monegasque said on Thursday.
“The last day [was] the only day where they actually pushed a little bit and in the last laps they did a very similar lap time to ours.
“So I don’t think they were ever very far away, and we don’t even know how much they pushed in the last day of testing. It’s not right to say that we were a lot for ahead after testing.”
Leclerc also thinks Ferrari’s pace hasn’t been as bad as results show.
“I don’t think it is as bad as the championship looks,” he said. “Obviously we have had two opportunities, once I did a mistake [in Baku], on the other one [in Bahrain] we had an issue that cost us a better result.
“Overall I think the performance is there we just need to try to put everything together in most occasions to be using our full potential.”
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This weekend, F1 returns to Barcelona with Ferrari keen to snap Mercedes’ winning streak and has brought a raft of upgrades to try and turn the tide in their favour.
“Hopefully the improvements we’ve brought here put us a step forward and then we’ll see for the rest of the season,” Leclerc commented.
“Normally Barcelona is quite a representative track for the performance of the car so hopefully we’re strong here.”
