F1 | Leclerc and Sainz believe Mercedes and Red Bull are playing down their true potential before “blowing the competition away”
In the final day of testing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were both upbeat for their cars’ pace. However, neither of them believe their main rivals at Red Bull and Mercedes have played their cards just yet.
Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc will be behind the wheel for the afternoon of the final day of testing in Bahrain after finishing third on Day 1 and sixth on Day 2.
Scuderia Ferrari is looking strong in ahead of the season, however, neither of their drivers believe their main rivals have shown their true potential as of now.
Ferrari’s two-time Grand Prix winner warned that title contenders Red Bull and Mercedes have far more to come before the season shakedown at the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 20. Much like teammate Carlos Sainz, he played down suggestions that the Scuderia have the advantage at this stage.
“The consistency is good, balance is good, which are two positive things, but this means absolutely nothing on the performance and yes, we are seeing not-bad lap times for now, but lap times that don’t mean anything.
“I’m pretty sure – I mean, I’m sure that Mercedes and Red Bull have so much more to come and are just hiding their gains a lot for now, so it doesn’t mean much – the timing page.”
The driver also pointed to Mercedes’ redesigned W13 as evidence of rapid development from the eight-time constructors’ championships and said he was braced for a similarly significant raft of upgrades from Red Bull.
“I think Red Bull will have another grade coming before the race. We’ve seen Mercedes that’s arrived with a completely different car here so yes, we cannot relax. They haven’t pushed at all and on our side, we are just trying to get to know these cars as much as we can to be as ready as possible for the first race.”
Teammate Carlos Sainz was also openly critical about George Russell's comments about Ferrari's supposed superiority as a "typical Mercedes" behaviour.
During the Barcelona test, Russell spoke about Ferrari's pace as the Scuderia impressed across all three days of track action, with the new Mercedes driver identifying Ferrari and McLaren as the pace-setters.
“They seem to have things well under control and they're on top of everything,” Russell said at the time, “they look very strong on low fuel, high fuel, and with the tyre management”.
Sainz was not chuffed by Russell’s words, on the contrary, he claimed:
“They've done it for five or six years now and they keep surprising us in the first race so, as you can imagine, I don't believe much.
"In the GPS, we can also see what they're doing and... yeah, I'm not gonna say much but...
