Charles Leclerc says Ferrari will start fine-tuning its car on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain after the team set the pace on day two.
Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz went below the 1m30s mark on Thursday afternoon to lead Red Bull’s Sergio Perez by three quarters of a second, with Leclerc having also been quickest in the morning session. The Monegasque says he was able to complete his run plan by staying in the car for an extra spell after an early lunch break, and believes Ferrari is making good progress with its car.
“All the answers [were achieved] because at the end we went through all our program, which is a good thing,” Leclerc said. “We have done big changes on the car and that’s what we were focusing on for these first two days. Tomorrow we will go and fine-tune a little bit more and go into the details.
“The first two days went well; however, let’s be careful because saying that the first two days went well doesn’t mean anything in terms of competitiveness, so we need to wait and see for that. My initial feeling is Red Bull remains the reference and ahead for now.”
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Despite conforming with the general paddock consensus that Red Bull has maintained its advantage, Leclerc also believes the test won’t show the full potential from any team.
“I think the first performance runs we’ll be seeing is in qualifying next week,” he said, “but yeah, every day you are trying to get a little bit more out of the car. Tomorrow is the last day, so hopefully center the car a bit more in terms of setup to where we think it’s the best and we’ll fine-tune it in order to be ready for next week.”
From a Red Bull perspective, Perez insists the gaps are smaller than rivals are claiming, but believes a clearer picture will emerge on the final day of running.
“I don’t really think that we’ve had much of a look in that regard,” Perez said. “I believe that things are a lot closer than we are thinking, definitely, but at the moment we’re basically focusing on our job, we’ve been so busy with our program. Tomorrow there will be a bit more of an idea, but I think we will find out next Sunday.”