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Leclerc believes that his rivals are hiding their true pace

14:43, 21 Feb 2019

byLouis Shaw

Charles Leclerc believes that rival teams are hiding their true pace in testing. Ferrari have been the dominant team so far in Barcelona but at this early stage, it is too early to predict competitiveness for the upcoming season.

"The performance has no sense for now because it remains testing,” Leclerc said to RaceFans. “They are probably not pushing and we are not either. We don’t know how much the others are sandbagging so we’ll see at the first race.

“I think the main importance for this test is to do the program of the day and that’s what we are doing so we are happy.”

“I’m not really focusing on the result at the moment,” he said. “As I’ve said in the past I think if I’m focusing mainly on myself, trying to do the best job possible in the car and out of the car, I’m pretty sure that the results will come at one point.

“So I just need to focus fully on myself. I don’t want to put in my head ‘okay I need to win the first race’. This is not what is in my head at the moment. I just want to grow as much as possible until the first race, be as comfortable as possible in the team and with the car and then the results will come.”

Keep up to date with our live blog for updates on the last day of testing.