The last morning of pre-season testing session at the Bahrain International circuit brought more questions than certainties for the Maranello team’s fans. Not so much due to the results (fourth place for Carlos Sainz behind Guanyu Zhou’s Alfa Romeo and Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri), but for the pace shown by of Carlos Sainz, who did not impress with the C3, especially considering Lewis Hamilton’s pace with the C2. The Spaniard lapped at 1:40, consistently slower than the seven-time world champion despite the compound advantage. But just as Ferrari was not excited at Montmeló and in the early days of Bahrain, it should not be underestimated after this morning’s results, also because we cannot know with certainty the fuel loads and the type of work done by the Maranello engineers.
What is striking is the reliability of the F1-75 car, which has never experienced a problem in 11 sessions, and therefore has always been able to finish the scheduled programme every time. This idea was also highlights by Charles Leclerc, who took part in a press conference during the lunch break on the final day of pre-season testing in Sakhir: “I can’t say much about the pace of our car, we don’t have a precise idea yet. But it’s nice to see that we are reliable and that we can do many laps without problems: this also helps us drivers. It was certainly one of the ‘smoothest’ pre-season testing periods we’ve ever had. With such an important project, you expect problems. But apart from porpoising, we haven’t had any.” – the Monegasque driver explained.
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Charles Leclerc did not want to comment on a possible pecking order ahead of the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 season: “We have not yet obtained 100% from the car, it will take some time. We don’t know much about the opponents either, but it can be seen that Red Bull has introduced a new package today and even Mercedes has certainly not yet shown its full potential. Of course, we know how much faster we can go with our car. However, we cannot apply this reasoning to the other teams, of which we know little or nothing. In this sense we must be careful” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.
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