Charles Leclerc ‘surprised’ as McLaren unleash extra pace in Bahrain. Charles looks back on the first race.

Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc said he was “surprised” by how competitive McLaren turned out to be in the Bahrain Grand Prix. The 2021 season-opener proved a very welcome sight for the fact that the midfield runners have clearly taken a step towards Mercedes and Red Bull at the front.

In qualifying Ferrari and AlphaTauri were squabbling for P4 and a place on row two, which ultimately was snatched by Leclerc for Ferrari. But in the race it was McLaren and Lando Norris who found a new level of performance with the Briton crossing the line P4, 12.5 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc.

During Free Practice 2 Charles Leclerc had seen that McLaren were carrying some solid race pace, but he was not expecting them to be so strong.

“Honestly, they surprised me more than what I was expecting,” he told Sky Italy – “They were competitive in FP2 with the race pace, but they didn’t show the pace they put on the track today. So, yes, they surprised me.” – he explained.

At the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix Ferrari did not get a car into Q3, while in the race Leclerc was able to score only point in P10. So for the team to record a double-points finish in 2021 displayed clear progress, even if their journey is far from complete if the Scuderia want to fight at the front again.

“I made a good start at the beginning of the race, then I managed to handle the tyres quite well. Maybe we did the pit-stop a bit early, but we did that because we wanted to put our opponents under pressure. And we managed to do that, but then at the end of the race we suffered with the tyres. I think that in general we handled the race quite well and the pace as well was not bad, and this is important. Then, for sure, we are not where we want to be yet. Every time we make some progress we must recognise that, but there is still much more work to do. This is not a track where I’m particularly good during the race, on this track I usually struggle a lot, because of the temperatures first of all. But we will work on that, and I think that it’s a step forward compared to last year. Historically we, as a team, have never been very strong on this track, except in 2019. So, I think it’s a positive start, now we have still a lot of work to do.” – Charles concluded.