‘Ferrari a little behind Mercedes and Red Bull, but not facing disaster’ – Charles Leclerc. Charles' interview after testing.

Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc remains confident that the Italian side is still making the “right steps” despite troubled pre-season F1 testing. Last week, Sebastian Vettel stopped out on track with an issue, and they never challenged the top end of the timesheets. On Wednesday Ferrari’s fastest time was only good enough for 10th.

Flashback 12 months and Ferrari were raising eyebrows with their pace around Barcelona. This year seems to be the opposite, maybe they’ve learnt their lesson? Either way, Charles Leclerc is confident the team are continuing to make progress: “I believe last year we had a big improvement from the first race to the last race. We got closer to Mercedes if anything. We need to put our head down and focus on ourselves as always. I’m confident we’ll make the right steps to get closer,” Leclerc said in a press conference after the afternoon testing session.

“It’s always difficult for a driver to know whether it’s the drag or the engine. Obviously, going quicker round the corner is probably the drag which makes us go slower on the straight. We need to wait and see for the overall performance of the car. I agree we are going round the corners quicker than we were last year – so that’s a positive. The car improved compared to last week. It was faster in the corners and slower on the straight. In the end it is what we wanted to get on the car and we will find out if it will be a good compromise. I think last year we knew where we were before the first race, but when we arrived at the first race, it was a completely different picture. I’m not sure we will know before the first race (where they are), I’m unsure if it’s necessary either. We are focusing on ourselves compared to last year. We’re trying to not look at what the others are doing, because we cannot control what we are doing and we can’t know what they are doing.” – he added.

“I don’t think the top teams are showing their full potential. At least we aren’t doing it! We are focused on ourselves. But we are a little behind Mercedes and Red Bull but we are not facing a catastrophe/disaster.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.