Charles Leclerc has revealed that he thought he would be able to keep Valtteri Bottas behind him after the Ferrari man completed a first lap pass on the Finn during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
However, Bottas was quickly able to regain the position, powering ahead of Leclerc on the back straight into Turn 1.
The ease with which the Mercedes driver was able to cruise past Leclerc came as a bit of a surprise to the Ferrari man and serves as evidence of the progress the team still need to make on the power-unit front
“I managed to get past him but without taking stupid risks,” he said.
“Before the race, you always try to imagine yourself and what were the fights that I would pick and the others that I wouldn’t.
“Valtteri was a bit of a question mark because I think in second practice he was not as competitive as we would have expected him to be. So we had a hope of maybe keeping him behind, which was not the case in the race.”
Leclerc qualified fourth on Saturday and managed to finish the race in sixth, despite briefly running in third.
With new teammate Carlos Sainz only a few spots back in eighth, the signs are that Ferrari have progressed and the Monegasque driver set battling with McLaren as the target for Imola in the three weeks.
“If I look at where we were last year, at the exact same place, there’s been a good progress,” he said.
“Surely we want to be fighting for the win very, very soon. But realistically and honestly, we’ve done a great job to catch that and to be now closer to McLaren at least, and fighting with them in the race. So let’s see in Imola.”
(Additional Reporting: Agnes Carlier).
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