Charles Leclerc completed his first laps as an official Ferrari driver on Wednesday as post-season testing resumed in Abu Dhabi. Leclerc will become the Scuderia’s second-youngest driver in history when he makes his race debut for the team next season, and he enjoyed a strong morning on the final day of track action in F1 2018.
The Monegasque driver, who had a superb rookie year at Sauber, set the lunchtime pace with a 1:36.559, with teams and drivers testing Pirelli tyre compounds for 2019. At the end of the day, Charles Leclerc closed out the final official Formula 1 running in 2018 at the top of the timesheets for Ferrari as he finished almost 1.5 seconds clear of the field in Abu Dhabi, ending the day with a best lap of 1m36.450s.
Charles Leclerc completed more than two race distances in the Ferrari SF71H as he continued to assimilate with the Ferrari team ahead of the 2019 season.
Another driver changing team colours for the Abu Dhabi test was Pierre Gasly, who completed his first running for Red Bull since August 2017 ahead of his move into a race seat for next year, replacing Daniel Ricciardo. Gasly finished the day second-fastest, 1.466 seconds down on Leclerc.
Lance Stroll completed a full day of running for Force India – despite still not being confirmed as its second driver for next year – and took third overall, finishing ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who was fourth as the Mercedes W09 car enjoyed its final run in anger.
Formula 1 will next conduct official collective running with teams at the first 2019 pre-season test, taking place on February 18.
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