Charles Leclerc believes that “no team will show its full potential”
As the teams and drivers count their laps before the first Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc says that Ferrari is not yet at its peak form and neither is anyone else.
With a rather limited pre-season program, consisting of only three days, teams have no time to waste when it comes to hitting the track before the new season, which starts next weekend.
The first day belonged to the reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, who set the pace in both the morning and afternoon sessions behind the wheel of the Red Bull RB19. Meanwhile, on the morning of the second day, it was Carlos Sainz’s turn to be in the lead.
For Charles Leclerc, these first tests mainly serve to see if the car responds well but not really to achieve performance on track. Interviewed by Sky Sports F1, after driving the SF-23 during the afternoon of the first day, the Monegasque responds: “I think we are all happy because the data corresponds to what we had at the factory, which is really important for the first day. It was our main goal in trying to put the car in different scenarios and different configurations and understand if everything matched, which was the case and it’s important. We will now focus a little more on the setup aspect and try to extract some performance.”
The Ferrari driver explains that his team, as well as all the others, haven’t shown everything yet during the first tests. Obviously, we don’t show everything because it’s only testing, which is why it is very, very important for us to focus on ourselves, because no team will show its full potential here. We don’t know where the other teams stand. We will be as ready as possible for the following weekend.
Charles Leclerc reassured by the first outings of the SF-23.
The major positive point to remember from these tests is the overall impressive reliability throughout the trials, which was an issue that cost Ferrari dearly on multiple occasions in 2022, shattering their title aspirations.
Ferrari has therefore worked hard to solve these issues during the winter with their updated power unit. However, driver number 16 says that it will not only be this Bahrain test that will convince him that these reliability issues have been relegated.
I hope it’s not just because we had a good day yesterday, because, to be honest, last year, we had three very clean reliability test days. But I know all the work done by the engineers in Maranello during the winter, and also all the development they have done, so I am convinced that it will be better this year.
