Mercedes accused of 'hiding' at F1 testing

Ferrari star Charles Leclerc has warned fans and the rest of the F1 paddock alike that he believes Mercedes are hiding their true pace in pre-season testing.

The first three days of official testing took place in Bahrain this week, with teams starting to get a rough handle on their 2026 machinery while looking to suss out their rivals' pace.

Leclerc isn't the only driver to come out and directly say that Mercedes are concealing a sizeable pace advantage this week. Max Verstappen accused the Silver Arrows of hiding something like a 20 horsepower advantage earlier in the week, saying: "Well, I can tell you one thing: just wait until Melbourne and see how much power they suddenly find."

Sandbagging is a traditional part of F1 preseason testing, with teams not wanting to show their rivals which unique aerodynamic elements and concepts might work until the very last possible moment. After all, you can't copy it if you don't know whether it works.

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Leclerc: Teams can hide performance so many ways

Speaking during the final day of running on Friday, the Monegasque star said: “For now I’ll stay really cautious, because if last year you had only two or three things you could play with on the car to hide your potential, maybe now it’s 10 or 15 because with this new system there are so many ways you can really hide your performance more than previous years.

"So in terms of performance itself, it’s very difficult to know. In terms of reliability we are looking good, and that’s true and that is a positive. But, at the end, performance is – as much as reliability – also a very important thing that we need to excel at, and we don’t really know where we are for now.”

He continued: “I think Red Bull showed a little bit more than Mercedes and they’ve been very impressive. I think Mercedes is hiding a massive amount, and only time will tell how much they’ve been hiding.”

Teams will run once again in Bahrain on Wednesday-Friday next week. After that, everyone will return to their respective factories to turn their learnings into tweaks to their cars, as there will be no further on-track running until teams arrive in Melbourne next month for the Australian Grand Prix.

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