Leclerc and Sainz fear rivals in different league

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Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz fear that their rivals are out of reach this weekend, heading into the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

McLaren's Lando Norris swept both practice sessions on friday with his team mate Oscar Piastri second quickest ahead of Red Bull driver Sergio Perez.

Leclerc ended FP2 six-tenths off the pace in fifth position having been seen to struggle through high speed corners such as Becketts. Sainz also found the cool and gloomy conditions challenging and finished eighth.

“It’s been a tricky day," Leclerc admitted. "But we’ve learnt a lot. Now it’s going to be all about analysing the data of both cars and taking the best decision for tomorrow.

"There’s a lot of data to look at, and everybody is flat-out to try and take the best decisions for tomorrow. It’s been a very productive day, not particularly fast unfortunately, but a very productive one.

Read also: Norris and McLaren continue to set the pace at Silverstone

"We're in the process of looking at everything, so I cannot really give you the direction we’ll go into yet," he said. "But we’re on it and I’m confident that we will take the best decision.

However, he appeared resigned to not featuring in the battle at the front this weekend as Ferrari continue to struggle to find the form they had earlier in the season.

"For now, we are not fully satisfied and will be working flat out to solve any issues quickly in order to have a good qualifying tomorrow.

"Unfortunately it felt like Red Bull and McLaren are a long way ahead this weekend but let’s wait and see. I hope I’m wrong," he said when asked if Ferrari was in the fight. “I don’t feel like that’s the case personally."

Having finished a tenth slower than Leclerc, Sainz had a similar sobering assessment of where Ferrari stood this weekend. "Today was to gather useful data to give us a complete picture about our car. Objective achieved.

"McLaren seems to be a step ahead, like [they have been] over the last couple of weekends. McLaren has been a clear one or two steps in front of us, and I feel like it’s the same this weekend.

“Obviously we’re trying to do everything we can to understand this package and how we can make it quicker," he continued. "But McLaren is in a different league.

"We’re both obviously testing things to try and improve the car,” he offered. “Some tests are going to go in the right direction, others are not, but it’s Friday so let us test whatever we want, and we’ll see how it goes.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.