The war has begun at Ferrari. Charles Leclerc, title contender, Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion, complete the tests in Bahrain with maximum equality. For the moment, everyone is smiling and the atmosphere is good, but the closeness of their times in each session shows that both want to be above the other.
Hamilton sets the fastest times
The best lap time in testing is not necessarily definitive, but it is what people will be looking at. And in this sense, the heptacampion of the world was superior.
On the first day he stopped the clock at 1:31.834, below Leclerc, who set a 1:30.878, almost a second difference for the Monegasque. However, on the second day, Hamilton won with a time of 1:29:379, while Leclerc came very close, with 1:29:431. On this last day of testing, Hamilton set a much better time than his team-mate, 1:30:345, while Charles Leclerc set 1:30:991.
Yes, they are just practice sessions, we don’t know the settings of each car at any given moment, what they have been looking at, but we repeat, when both drivers look at their times, the Briton will have already obtained his first victory at the first attempt.
Good words between the two before the world championship
Charles Leclerc has commented on the arrival of Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari and points out the contrast between their careers as drivers when they joined the team. The Monegasque arrived at the Italian team after one year in Formula 1 and still in the process of training, while Hamilton lands in Maranello as a Formula 1 legend.
“Lewis’s situation is very different. I still had to learn how a team like Ferrari worked, although I already knew the factory from my time at the Academy”.
Regardless of the existing discrepancies, Leclerc says he has been able to take advantage of the experience of having Hamilton by his side: “I have learned a lot and I have dared to reflect on how happy Hamilton was. I have tried to focus and now I am ready to face the first race.”
For his part, Hamilton praised his team-mate, highlighting his maturity: “Charles is more mature than I was at 27. He won’t be easy to beat, but if we work together, we can achieve great things”.
The Briton also analyzed his work style: “He is very professional, fast from the start and strong in the race. I always knew he had a great future,” concluded Hamilton.
Masks off
Although on the outside, and for the sake of appearances, it’s all good words and good faces, the truth is that we are talking about Formula 1, and Hamilton has not gone to Ferrari to take a stroll at the end of his career, he has returned to try to bring Ferrari, and himself, back to the top of Formula 1. His voracity knows no bounds, something that has been demonstrated over the years, and he will fight to the end to become the driver with the most world titles under his belt.
For his part, Leclerc faces his most difficult season. Everything indicates that Ferrari has never been so close to winning the championship again. He is the driver who has been with the team the longest, he knows the car, the structure of the team, and if Ferrari is in a position to win, it is time for the driver to step up and show that he is made to be world champion. It is possible that this is his greatest opportunity and his greatest challenge at the same time.
We will see how this war for glory unfolds and how Ferrari manages the egos of its two drivers.