Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have completed three intensive days of testing in Bahrain. The Ferrari duo is now especially curious about where the teams will stand compared to their biggest competitors. The Scuderia did not have a flawless winter test, but it seems confident about the start of the season. In the past three days she has been able to collect enough data to have a positive view of the first Grand Prix.
On the final day of winter testing, Leclerc and Sainz completed a total of 143 laps or 774 kilometres, bringing the team’s total distance covered this week to 417 laps, or 2,257 kilometres. The SF-23 will therefore start the first Grand Prix weekend of the season with more than seven race distances under its belt. ‘We have had three very intensive days of testing. The first day was all about doing big scans and trying to understand how well our data matches what we predicted at the factory,” Leclerc said in a Ferrari press release.
“What we’ve learned is that there’s a pretty good correlation. We paid a lot of attention to the set-up this week and made some good steps forward,” the Ferrari driver continued. As Leclerc said earlier, he could try different driving styles to see what suits the car, although he hasn’t found his sweet spot yet. “Next week we are back for the opening race of the season and it will be interesting to see where all the teams stand against their closest competitors,” said the Monegask.
Sainz is looking forward to racing
Sainz is also positive for the first race of the season, which will be held on the same track as during the winter test. “We completed the test without any problems and completed the full schedule we had for these three days,” the Spaniard recalls. On Saturday we focused on both short and long runs to finalize the assessment of some of the parameters we wanted to test. Now we will focus on analyzing the data in order to be as well prepared as possible for the first Grand Prix of the year. I’m looking forward to racing here next week.”
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