Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton have both expressed optimism over Ferrari’s chances of taking the fight to Mercedes as the 2026 season develops, even if their rivals started with a “huge” advantage in Australia.
Leclerc led the early stages of the Melbourne opener after rocketing from fourth on the grid to first, and eventually completed the podium positions behind the two Silver Arrows machines, while team mate Hamilton backed him up in fourth.
Asked if he feels Ferrari have the potential to challenge Mercedes moving forward, Leclerc said: “I really hope so. In Qualifying, it’s going to take a lot of work in order to change the advantage that they have. Eight tenths in Melbourne was absolutely huge.
“There are things we are optimising that we haven’t optimised in Melbourne, so it will get better, but they still have a significant advantage.
“In the race [conditions], we are closer, so I hope that starting from this weekend we can put them under a bit more pressure.”
With the Sprint format in play at the Shanghai International Circuit, the Monegasque added: “We’ve done a massive amount of work in the background to be ready for a weekend like this. It was already a massive amount of work for a normal weekend to be ready with these cars.
“On a Sprint weekend, it’s probably double the work, because we’ve got very few laps before needing to be optimal for Qualifying. It’s going to be a huge challenge for everybody.
“I think in the past, or last year, one Free Practice session wasn’t such a problem – you could be suboptimal because of set-up by one or two tenths. Here, being suboptimal with the engine could mean five, six, seven tenths.
“It’s going to be very important to do a good job during FP1 and to be ready in Sprint Qualifying in order to have the best result.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, continued to cut an upbeat figure as he gradually puts a challenging first campaign at Ferrari behind him.
“I had a lot of fun last week,” he said. “Also to have extra [pre-season] testing was fun for us, because it’s normally only a day-and-a-half in the car or something like that before the first race.
“So, to get more running… then a lot discovered through the race from start to end. We knew that Mercedes were looking really strong, and little did we know it was as big a gap that we saw, but not an impossible gap to close.
“It’s just going to take all hands on deck, and I’m confident in my team doing absolutely everything back at the factory to try and close that gap.”
Pushed on his and Ferrari’s victory chances in China, having won the Sprint here last season, Hamilton said: “I think it’s far too early to say. Secondly, we were eight-tenths behind in Qualifying at the last race, so we haven’t added eight-tenths of performance to the car in four days.
“I think it will still be very tough to beat the Mercedes this weekend. You also have to assume that the others are going to be picking up pace, like McLaren picking up pace, the second Red Bull being in the fight as well.
“I think we’ll just focus on doing the best job we can and extracting the most from the car.”
