Charles Leclerc has revealed his fears about Mercedes’ pace at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, despite a strong showing from Ferrari in Friday practice.
Fresh from setting the fastest time at the close of pre-season testing, Leclerc hit the ground running in Australia, setting the fastest time in FP1.
The SF-26 converted its pace from Bahrain, performing well on both long and short runs, fuelling further hopes of a Ferrari renaissance in 2026.
Although he slipped back to fifth in FP2, he and Ferrari spent the majority of the session towards the top of the timesheets once again.
But the spectre of Mercedes hovered over Ferrari’s growing momentum, as Mercedes jumped to second and third in FP2.
Leclerc revealed his fear of the Silver Arrows’ pace, confirming work is underway to understand the level of deficit to the Scuderia.
“I think Mercedes is slowly showing a bit more of what they have, and FP2 we are starting to see where we are lacking compared to them,” he said to media, including Motorsport Week.
“They are clearly very strong, especially in terms of race pace. I don’t know how much margin they still have on qualifying pace but in the race pace they seem to be very strong compared to us.”
“Race pace, they were very, very impressive. In terms of qualifying pace, again, it’s difficult to know how much more there is to come.
“Oscar did a very impressive lap, but I don’t know also what they are doing between the cars because maybe they might be testing different things between the cars, because Lando was quite far back.
“Again it’s the first race of a completely new car, so lots of question marks – but on the long run I will say you have a bit of a better picture of what’s going on in the performances of everybody so far.
“I hope I’m wrong and that we are much faster tomorrow, but at the moment it seems to be Mercedes a step ahead and then Red Bull, McLaren and ourselves after.”
More work to do for Charles Leclerc and Ferrari
Leclerc confirmed however, that the focus for Melbourne remains internally on maximising results for both Australia and next weekend’s Chinese GP.
“I don’t really focus on [Mercedes], we’ve got plenty of things to improve on our car,” he said.
“In FP2 I tried something quite aggressive which didn’t work out, so I’ll be back tomorrow into a more reasonable window and we’ll see how it looks like.
“There’s still some work to do. As I’ve always said, Melbourne and Shanghai are probably the two hardest tracks for me of the season, and I always struggle quite a bit, so it’s a challenge. But it shouldn’t be an excuse, and actually I enjoy that challenge, and I will work hard in order to turn that situation around tomorrow.”
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