“Very impressive” Mercedes isn’t sandbagging anymore

Mercedes’ pace in free practice for the Australian Grand Prix shows the Silver Arrows aren't concealing their true performance like they used to, according to Charles Leclerc.

McLaren was fastest on Friday in Melbourne with Oscar Piastri lapping in 1m19.729s; Mercedes was two tenths away with Kimi Antonelli setting a 1m19.943s, but the W17’s long-run pace particularly impressed Leclerc, who ended up more than half a second off Piastri’s pace after a couple of off-track excursions.

“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,” the Monegasque said. “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,” he added. “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.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images)

Leclerc’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was closer to the front, lapping two tenths faster in 1m20.050s, and the 28-year-old has admitted to having work to do after a set-up experiment failed to pay off.

“I don't really focus on [Mercedes], we've got plenty of things to improve on our car,” Leclerc pointed out. “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.”

Leclerc did win the 2022 Australian GP from pole position, but he was outqualified by team-mate Carlos Sainz the next two years, with the Spaniard leading a Ferrari 1-2 in 2024.

Last year, Leclerc outperformed Hamilton on his way to a lowly eighth-place finish in the race.