Vasseur is unsure about the pecking order, but hopes Ferrari can fight for the championships

The changeable weather conditions have left Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur unsure about the pecking order, but the Frenchman hopes that the Scuderia will be able to fight for the championships in the last season of the current technical era.

Ferrari completed its pre-season test programme with the SF-25, racking up a total of 385 laps in Bahrain ahead of the opening round in Australia on 16 March. The distance was equivalent to around seven Grand Prix distances and 2084 kilometres.

In the morning session of Day 3 in Sakhir, Charles Leclerc was behind the wheel of the SF-25, running the C3 compound tyre for almost the entire four hours available, with the exception having been a five lap stint on the C4. Although the Monegasque actually set his best time of 1’30”811 on the harder of the two compounds.

In the afternoon, Lewis Hamilton completed a programme that was almost identical to the one Leclerc ran on the second day of the pre-season testing, with the Englishman carrying out qualifying and race simulations. On low fuel, Hamilton’s best time was a 1’30”345 on the C4 compound.

Then, with a heavy fuel load he ran C3 tyres bringing his daily lap total to 47 (254 kilometres). However, Hamilton was unable to complete his race simulation as Ferrari spotted an anomaly on the telemetry and elected to end the running as a precaution.

Commenting on the Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has revealed that he is unsure about the pecking order, but the Frenchman hopes that the Scuderia will be able to fight for the championships in the last season of the current technical era.

"It has been hard to get a clear read on the overall situation here in Bahrain, as the conditions were changing quite a lot day by day and from the morning to the afternoon, so it was more similar to Vegas than to the Bahrain we usually know.

"Over the past six months, we have worked very hard on this car and have made a good improvement, but we will have to wait until we are all on track in Melbourne to understand where we are.

"If we look at the hierarchy of previous years, what we saw here was not the same as in qualifying a week later, under the same conditions. We will go from 10-15 degrees on the track to the 45 we will have in Australia, so in Melbourne, it will probably be a whole different story.

"We want to fight for both championships, as we know we have two drivers who can do it, and the mood in the team is very positive. We will continue to work hard to be ready in two weeks’ time for the start of the season," concluded Vasseur.