Ferrari ended the first day of practice on top of the times in Baku but Charles Leclerc insists McLaren remain the team to beat.
Lewis Hamilton beat Leclerc to the fastest time in the second practice session on Friday by less than a tenth of a second. Only Mercedes managed to get within half a second of them but both McLaren drivers suffered compromised sessions after hitting the walls around the street circuit.
Leclerc admitted he can get more pace out of his car but believes there is even more in the McLarens after Lando Norris ended the day nine tenths of a second off the pace.
“I think there’s a lot more potential, especially coming from me,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “I didn’t do a great job today but overall we seem to be pretty strong, so it’s good.
“But – and there’s a big but – it looks like McLaren is in another world, literally. And I think people will be very surprised tomorrow because Lando didn’t finish some laps that were very, very impressive.
“So I doubt we’ll be in the fight with them but compared to the others it seems that we are kind of in a good place.”
Leclerc has taken pole position for the last four grands prix in a row at this track without winning any of them. He does not expect the team will be in the hunt to claim its first Baku win this weekend.
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“I don’t think there’s a battle for the win, for now,” he said. “But never say never.
“I think in 2021 and in many qualifying [sessions] here I felt like it wasn’t possible and at the end, we kind of made it. So I’ll keep my hopes high, but it looks unlikely.”
Hamilton said he felt much happier with his car’s brakes in the second session after clipping a barrier during the first.
“It wasn’t so positive, I would say [first practice] was a bit of a mess. This is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence in the brakes and I had some problems with the brakes.
“Also every track I’m going to is the first time driving a Ferrari at that circuit so acclimatising to that is not easy. We made some changes going into [second practice] and the brakes finally were working perfectly and so I was able to really make some big advantages in terms of gaining on the brakes.
“So I’m really happy to see the progress and it just goes to [justify] the direction we’ve been going as a team. I’m really, really grateful for everyone’s patience and everyone pushing so hard because we’re really starting to see progress come through.”
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