Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari are “taking steps forward” after implementing their first set of upgrades this season. Hamilton has endured a disappointing start to life at Ferrari, with his seventh placed finish at the Japanese Grand Prix his best result so far.
The Brit’s team-mate Charles Leclerc has only fared slightly better, with Ferrari yet to earn a podium finish. However, Ferrari have now implemented a series of upgrades ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix and Hamilton says they are “definitely working”.
Ferrari have upgraded their floor in an attempt to improve performance and Leclerc was fourth quickest in Friday practice (FP2), while Hamilton was eighth. “It was fun. It was quite difficult in the morning as always,” he told reporters.
“With the temperature being so high, the grip was terrible on the hard tyre for the first run. Then it’s quite a big shock from hard to soft, which was much better.
“We made some changes and the car felt pretty decent in FP2. [It’s just about] consistency… just trying to put the laps together, having a car that’s easy to drive and that’s consistent through the lap.
“At the moment it’s a bit different between low, medium and high [speed corners], as you often have. We’re just trying to finesse it, trying to tweak it, and make sure that we have good long-run pace, because that’s where you need to be strong here particularly.
“The upgrades are definitely working. A big, big thank you to everyone back home for working so hard on bringing the upgrades, because it’s never an easy thing.
“It’s a lot of work that goes on in the wind tunnel and a lot of work that goes on in fabricating and putting together these floors. It’s just good to see that we’re taking steps forward.
“We’re trying to now extract more from it and I hope we can make the right steps overnight to tomorrow.”
Leclerc, meanwhile, admitted Ferrari still have a long way to go before they can challenge the likes of McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. “We’re just not fast enough,” Leclerc said after FP2.
“When we look at the McLaren, they are just on another planet for now. It’s annoying, but it’s the way it is. It actually motivates me to try and close that gap as soon as possible, but they are incredibly fast.
“It’s been a tricky session, because it’s so much warmer than the [pre-season] test, and obviously you go into a session expecting the grip that you had at the test and it’s completely different. We’ve got to readjust the car and there will be a lot of work during the night to try and turn the situation around tomorrow.”
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