Formula 1 ®
Pre-Season Testing: Day 2
Charles Leclerc says Ferrari will start fine-tuning its car on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain after the team set the pace on day two.
Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz went below the 1m30s mark on Thursday afternoon to lead Red Bull’s Sergio Perez by three quarters of a second, with Leclerc having also been quickest in the morning session. The Monegasque says he was able to complete his run plan by staying in the car for an extra spell after an early lunch break, and believes Ferrari is making good progress with its car.
“All the answers [were achieved] because at the end we went through all our program, which is a good thing,” Leclerc said. “We have done big changes on the car and that’s what we were focusing on for these first two days. Tomorrow we will go and fine-tune a little bit more and go into the details. “The first two days went well; however, let’s be careful because saying that the first two days went well doesn’t mean anything in terms of competitiveness, so we need to wait and see for that. My initial feeling is Red Bull remains the reference and ahead for now.”
Carlos Sainz #55
Another day of testing completed according to plan and without issues. We managed to go through the whole afternoon programme smoothly, combining various tests with low and high fuel runs, so it was interesting to get a feel for this year’s car in different configurations. Now I look forward to the last session tomorrow morning where we’ll keep focusing on the long runs.
Charles Leclerc #16
The first two days have gone well as we have run our full programme, although at this stage, we can’t say how competitive we are. I think the first time we will get an idea of where we stand will be in qualifying next week. We made some general changes to the car today and yesterday, with our focus shifting to fine-tuning our set-up on the last day of testing.
Lewis Hamilton# 44
“It was a productive day out there,” Lewis said. “We gathered lots of learnings about the W15, both in our long running and single lap work. We’ve clearly made an improvement with this year’s car and it’s much nicer to drive. A big thank you to everyone at Brackley and Brixworth for the efforts they’ve put in to deliver that over the past year. I’m really grateful for all their hard work. We’ve still got progress to make of course. But this is a good foundation for us to build on. We’ll keep our heads down and continue to work to find improvements, both over the rest of the test and into next week. I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and continuing that learning.”
In a statement to De Telegraaf, the 50-year-old said, “I completely deny these allegations.”
Checo # 11
“It was unexpected to be in the car all day today but the delays meant my early runs were cut short, so the Team decided to extend my day and I am back in the car again tomorrow morning. Generally speaking, I think the RB20 is a step forward for the Team and we have gone in the right direction for us. It is a tricky track here from morning to afternoon, dialing in set-up and getting to understand those different set-ups because the track is changing on every outing, so you must base a lot on your feeling. I have been working over the winter on understanding last season from a personal perspective, in order to start the season on an upward curve. You are always learning and always want to get better and that’s no different for me in 2024.”
Kevin Magnussen # 20
“I think it’s been another solid day for us, focusing on race runs and high-fuel performance, addressing the same issues as yesterday. Our tire issues from last year are our main focus and it’s been very interesting. I think we’ve made some progress, and for sure there’s a lot of work to do, but they’re going in the right direction. I’m not sure how fast we are, I’d be surprised if we’re in a very different position to last year, but I think we’re in slightly better condition on tires. It’s very hard to conclude from running in one set of conditions, on one track. But for now, there are positive signs on the issues from last year.”
Nico Hulkenberg # 27
“Yesterday was quite good as it was a lot of work, a lot of laps we got in, and some quality work. This morning was cut short with the track issue they had, so we obviously lost a bit of time but so far, so good. I think we’ve got some good work done already and it seems like a step forward and an improvement compared to 12 months ago which is good news, but it’s still going to be a challenging time.”