Mercedes called 'very good at hiding their potential' in Bahrain verdict

18:38, 13 Feb

Updated: 18:43, 13 Feb

byKada Sarkozi

Charles Leclerc believes Red Bull and Mercedes are both in front, despite the two teams suggesting their rivals are ahead.

"Mercedes are showing some very impressive things as well sometimes, but I would say they are hiding a lot more."

- Charles Leclerc

"I think everybody's trying to throw the ball to the other guys, so it's normal at this point of the season," the Ferrari driver began to GPblog, among others, in Bahrain.

Photo: Race Pictures

On Friday, George Russell - similarly to Toto Wolff - once again claimed that Red Bull Racing is the benchmark, while the Austrian team's Technical Director Pierre Waché argued otherwise.

Leclerc believes it's hard to draw conclusions for now. He continued: "Because it's so difficult to understand. It was difficult with the previous generation of cars. But now with the hybrid and especially the electrical engine being so much more powerful, there are so many small tweaks that you can do.

"And you can hide the real potential of the car in many, many different ways now. So it's very, very difficult for us to understand exactly where we stand.

"What I'm happy about is that we are going through our program, we didn't have any reliability issues so far this is a good start, everything stacks up with what we expected so that's a good base to then start to work on and to improve," the Monegasque driver added, before the SF-26 stopped under Lewis Hamilton during the final ten minutes of the afternoon session. The reason remains unknown.

Leclerc driving the SF-25 in Bahrain - Photo: Race Pictures

Leclerc believes Red Bull and Mercedes are ahead

In terms of what he has seen so far in Bahrain, Leclerc was impressed with Red Bull and Mercedes.

"I think Red Bull have shown very impressive things power unit-wise since the start of the test, especially here. Mercedes are showing some very impressive things as well sometimes, but I would say they are hiding a lot more.

"And yes, I will expect them to especially to be a bit ahead of us. McLaren is a little bit more difficult to understand. From where I stand now it's Red Bull and Mercedes in front, and then us, but there doesn't seem to be too much of a gap for now."