---
title: "Leclerc: Ferrari’s 2021 car has shown ‘promising signs’"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2021/03/13/leclerc-ferraris-2021-car-has-shown-promising-signs/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Hamilton Lyndon-Griffiths"
section: "F1 News"
published: "2021-03-13T14:01:36Z"
modified: "2021-03-13T14:01:38Z"
---

# Leclerc: Ferrari’s 2021 car has shown ‘promising signs’

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari’s 2021 Formula 1 car is showing some “promising signs” early on in testing, but feels its too early to judge how it compares to last year.

Ferrari suffered its worst campaign for 40 years in 2020 as it was hampered by a lack of engine power that left it behind its rivals in straightline speed.

In reaction to its struggles, Ferrari has developed an all-new power unit for this year, as well as work on rectifying the weaknesses of its 2020 car when designing the SF21.

Leclerc and new Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz managed a combined total of 115 laps on the opening day, competing over a full two race distance.

The Monegasque was left encouraged by the performance, but said it was difficult to understand the full potential of the car this early.

“The impressions were good again,” Leclerc said, as quoted by Motorsport.com. “Yesterday we went through all the programme in the morning, but the conditions are very very tricky.

“It’s very warm, and very windy, so it’s very difficult to make a comparison with last year for now. And it’s all relative to the others: how much they improved compared to us. But yeah, there are some promising signs, but we can’t know until the first qualy.”

Ferrari found the rear end on last year’s car was unstable which caused the drivers to lose the back of the car mid-corner.

Asked if he this area had been improved on the new challenger, Leclerc said: “I think there’s been some work on that, and the first data that we have seen on track is correlating with the ones that we’ve had back in Maranello before this test, so this is already positive.

“Then again, to give a feedback or a feeling on the car now in those conditions is very, very difficult. But to see that we made some work on it, and that the data is correlating well with the ones that we have in Maranello, is already a good sign on that.”

Leclerc also felt the engine had made a step forward, but remained coy on how it compared to other teams power units as everyone was running different programmes.

“Everything feels quite good. But again, it’s very difficult to comment now, nobody’s pushing everything to its limit, especially in these conditions,” Leclerc said.

“So for now it’s early days. But everything feels good and, as I said, stacks up with what we expected.”