Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc admitted that he “definitely didn’t expect” rival team Red Bull’s performance in practice for the Chinese Grand Prix, as Red Bull’s lead driver Max Verstappen had outpaced the struggling Ferraris in Melbourne, but was well off the pace in Bahrain.
Yet despite the new RB15 chassis’ patchy form, as well as the two long straights in Shanghai that could expose its new engine partner Honda’s remaining deficit to the benchmark power units, Verstappen ended Friday practice in China a strong third, just 0.221s off the pace.
Charles Leclerc, who was only seventh-fastest after his qualifying simulation was compromised by traffic, said: “I think it will be very close, Mercedes and also Red Bull are actually quite close, so will be an interesting battle. Red Bull are definitely closer than we expected, so that’s good to see. It will be a good fight between the three teams, I think.” – he explained at the end of the second practice session aheda of the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc aborted his first quick lap on the qualifying simulation runs and when he did finally try again after a number of slow laps he was not able to approach Vettel’s pace. The Monegasque driver also ran into problems later in the session – he was unable to do his race-simulation run because of a problem with the cooling system. It is the third consecutive race in which the engine at Ferrari has caused a concern of one kind or another.
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