Charles Leclerc says Mercedes ‘clearly very strong’ and admits Ferrari risk ‘didn’t work out’

Charles Leclerc suggested Mercedes was “slowly showing a bit more of what they have” after they occupied two of the top three spots in FP2.

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli rose from P7 and P8 to P2 and P3 respectively in the afternoon session in Melbourne as pre-season predictions of their dominance threatens to be coming true.

Charles Leclerc delivers Mercedes assessment

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Throughout pre-season, Mercedes has been tipped as the overwhelming favourite for this year’s championship but the Brackley-based squad has been keeping its cards close to its chest up until now.

In FP1, Ferrari secured a one-two with both Merc drivers over a second off but it was a different story in FP2 with only the McLaren of Oscar Piastri – another Mercedes-powered car – ahead of the two works team drivers.

Leclerc, who was fifth in FP2, suggested Mercedes was beginning to reveal their true power.

“FP1 was good,” he said. “FP2 was…I think Mercedes is slowly showing a bit more of what they have and FP2, we are starting to show to see where we are lacking compared to them.

“I think 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. So a lot of work, but I don’t really focus on that.

“We’ve got plenty of things to improve on our car, and we tried something quite aggressive, which didn’t work out. So we’ll be back tomorrow with a more reasonable window, and we’ll see how it looks like.”

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Leclerc also elaborated on his perceived Mercedes dominance and suggested they were a “step ahead” of Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.

“Especially in the race pace, they were very, very impressive,” he said. “Then 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 also don’t know what they are doing between the cars, because maybe they might be testing different things between the cars, because Lando was quite far back.

“So again, it’s the first race of a completely new car. So lots of question marks. But in the long run, I’ll 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 is a step ahead and then Red Bull, McLaren and ourselves after.”

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