Charles Leclerc is refusing to read too much into Ferrari’s strong start to ꩵFormula 1 pre-season testing in Barcelona, believing immediate rivals Mercedes and Red Bull are still "sandbagging."

Ferrari topped the ope🤡ning two days of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catlunya, w🤡ith Leclerc setting the pace on Tuesday.

Ferrari’s quick lap times, high lap count, and impressive reliability prompted Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Va♔ltteri Bottas to both say their rival looked strong, with Bottas believin🌳g Ferrari seem “a bit ahead.”

Leclerc downplayed Fer♊rari’s start to testing, saying it was not truly representative until the other teams began to push thei𒀰r cars more and show their true colours.

“The performance has no [meaning] for now, because it rema🤡ins testing and they are probably no🃏t pushing, and we are not either,” Leclerc said.

“We don’t know how much the others are 𝓡sandbagging, so we’ll see at the first race.

“I think the m൩ain importance for these tests are to do the pro☂gramme of the day, and that is what we are doing, so we are happy.

“We need to keep pushing because as I said the other te꧑ams are sandbagging and we need to see how much they have, but we are pretty happy with the car 🎃at the moment.”

Mercedes outpaced Ferrari for the first time in thಌe morning session of Thursday’s running in Barcelona, but Red Bull i💦s yet to have challenged either team.

Testing continues for four more days in Barcelona next week, running from Februa꧋ry 26 to March 1.