Leclerc and Ferrari increase the pace Thursday morning

Charles Leclerc and Team sent a strong message during the penultimate morning of the 2019 pre-season collective tests. 

Si Ferrari had lost an afternoon of driving on Wednesday due to a rim problem occurred on the SF90, the Italian team quickly got back in the saddle, as evidenced by the time of its Monaco recruit.

Wearing the softest red C5 tires, but probably not the most suitable for the Barcelona circuit, Leclerc clocked a time of 1'16''231, which erases the previous winter reference, owned by Carlos Sainz, by almost a full second. 

Author of 56 laps Thursday morning, the former champion of Formula 2 precedes the Toro Rosso Honda engineAlexander albon by six tenths, while Lando Norris completes the Top 3 with McLaren-Renault, 0,2s further. 

Fourth time of the morning, Pierre Gasly is in ambush with the Red Bull-Honda. A little further on follow the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg, who focused on the short relays this morning, the Racing Point-Mercedes de Lance stroll, and the AlfaAntonio Giovinazzi.

All of the Top 7 cars registered their best mark with the C5 compound, as did George Russell, 9th on the Williams-Mercedes whose birth was so thwarted. 

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton only appear in 8th position with a W10 fitted with hard C2 tires and a time of 1'18"097. Remember that Pirelli estimated the performance gap between the C5 and C2 compounds at 1,9s, which puts the level of competitiveness of the five-time world champion into perspective. 

Kevin Magnussen brings up the rear in 10th place. The Dane ran on the Pirelli development tires without any markings before improving his time on the yellow C3 compound. The penultimate day of 2019 winter testing will resume at 14:00 p.m. and will be followed in live commentary via our live-text. 

And that's lunch on Day 3 of the 2nd test…

Scorching stuff from @Charles_Leclerc #F1Testing #F1 pic.twitter.com/xDMd3GTncy

— Formula 1 (@F1) February 28, 2019

It's time to break for lunch. And for thought, as we see the fastest lap times set so far this year. We're already quicker than last year's test and closing in on the 2018 pole. # Fit4F1 pic.twitter.com/wlKKHdIjnT

- Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) February 28, 2019