Leclerc: Ferrari not as bad as championship looks
F1 News
- Bobby Vincent
Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari have been more competitive this season than some people are suggesting, despite not finishing in the top two for the opening four races.
Mercedes have locked out the front row in each of the four races so far this season and are a huge 74 points in front of its rivals at this stage of the season. Despite this, the Monegasque driver believes Scuderia have been more competitive than what the points suggest.
"I don't think it is as bad as the championship looks," Leclerc said. "Obviously we have had two opportunities, once I did a mistake, on the other one we had an issue that cost us a better result.
"But overall, I think the performance is there we just need to try to put everything together in most of the occasions to be using our full potential."
This weekend sees Formula 1 return to Europe and to the track where Ferrari dominated in pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya - but Leclerc believes the Italian's advantage was overhyped at that stage.
"I think Mercedes were not that far (behind) even in testing in Barcelona," Leclerc continued. "The last day (was) the only day where they actually pushed a little bit and in the last laps, they did a very similar lap-time to ours.
"So I don't think they were ever very far away, and we don't even know how much they pushed in the last day of testing. It's not right to say that we were a lot for ahead after testing.
"Hopefully the improvements we've brought here put us a step forward and then we'll see for the rest of the season. Normally Barcelona is quite representative track for the performance of the car so hopefully we're strong here."