Hamilton delighted with Ferrari’s performance, but fears McLaren are ahead

Having completed his first pre-season testing with Ferrari, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton suggested that McLaren looked incredibly strong given Lando Norris’ race simulation on the second day of the running in Sakhir.

Ferrari completed its pre-season test programme with the SF-25, racking up a total of 385 laps in Bahrain ahead of the opening round in Australia on 16 March. The distance was equivalent to around seven Grand Prix distances and 2084 kilometres.

In the morning session, Charles Leclerc was behind the wheel of the SF-25, running the C3 compound tyre for almost the entire four hours available, with the exception having been a five lap stint on the C4. Although the Monegasque actually set his best time of 1’30”811 on the harder of the two compounds.

In the afternoon, Lewis Hamilton completed a programme that was almost identical to the one Leclerc ran on the second day of the pre-season testing, with the Englishman carrying out qualifying and race simulations. On low fuel, Hamilton’s best time was a 1’30”345 on the C4 compound.

Then, with a heavy fuel load he ran C3 tyres bringing his daily lap total to 47 (254 kilometres). However, Hamilton was unable to complete his race simulation as Ferrari spotted an anomaly on the telemetry and elected to end the running as a precaution.

Commenting on the three-day pre-season testing, Leclerc said that the weather made it very difficult to run the car in consistent conditions.

“This has been a very different type of pre-season testing, because of the inconsistent weather in Bahrain making it hard to come to any real conclusions.

“The wind changed from run to run, there was even some rain yesterday, and temperatures fluctuated over the course of the week, so all the teams head to the first race with some more unknowns compared to the past few years. We still learned a huge amount, especially in terms of the way the car feels now that we’ve actually been out on track.

“We will return to Maranello and spend some time in the simulator, to look for the last details that could make a difference in Melbourne, but also to correlate the feeling in the sim to that in the real car. We are fully focused on maximizing our performance over the coming week and I really look forward to kicking off the season,” concluded the Monegasque.

Having completed his first pre-season testing with the Scuderia, Lewis Hamilton echoed Leclerc’s words, claiming that the weather conditions caused an unusual factor in Manama.

“Overall, it’s been a great few days and we’ve made some strong progress as a team. We had to finish a little earlier than planned today, and the weather has been hard to predict all week, but that’s how testing works sometimes, and we’ve managed to gather a lot of good information to build on before the season starts.

“The whole team has done an incredible job, and I’m so excited to get to the first race in Melbourne. I can’t wait to go racing with them.”

Asked about the pecking order, the seven-time F1 champion insisted that McLaren looked incredibly strong given Lando Norris’ race simulation on the second day of the running in Sakhir.

“Obviously it’s a lot hotter today but the McLaren did a great run yesterday. And I think also Max did a decent one today, even with the temperatures. So again it’s hard to know what fuel loads everyone is running, as we’re all doing different on our own programs.

“So you have to take everything with a pinch of salt. But yeah, I mean, they won the constructors last year. We expect them to be one of the quickest, if not the quickest, as with Red Bull, who have dominated for many, many years.”

F1GP Qatarprevious