Bahrain Grand Prix: Red Bull start season favourites, says Ferrari's Charles Leclerc

Red Bull head into the new Formula 1 season as favourites to win the first race in Bahrain this weekend, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc says.

The 24-year-old said he believed his team, who impressed in testing, were "still a bit behind Red Bull".

But he said he was optimistic Ferrari could challenge more closely at the front after two difficult seasons.

"I don't think we are speaking about being a second (behind) like it was last year," Leclerc said.

"It's going to be closer. This is already a good sign."

And Leclerc said that there was "a lot more to come from Mercedes", even though the constructors' champions appeared to be struggling in pre-season testing and Lewis Hamilton has said the team will not be able to compete for wins at the start of the season.

Leclerc emphasised that Mercedes never tried their car close to its full potential in pre-season testing.

"Mercedes didn't show all their potential," Leclerc said. "I mean, they've done a few laps here and there that were good once they were putting everything together. But they didn't really put anything together to be honest.

"I think they (and Red Bull) will still be the two teams to beat this year."

F1 has introduced the biggest rule change for 40 years before this season in an attempt to bring the field closer together and to make racing more competitive.

This has meant even greater uncertainty than normal about the competitive levels of the teams before they all unleash their full performance levels in qualifying on Saturday.

Ferrari were the team to put in the most consistent showing in pre-season testing, appearing close to the top of the times most days.

But they have taken a different development approach from Red Bull and Mercedes, both of whom introduced major upgrades on their cars in the course of the final pre-season test, while Ferrari's has been more or less in the same specification since it launched.

Leclerc said this had given the Ferrari drivers an advantage because they knew the car well, but he admitted it might have some drawbacks.

"I feel confident because I feel like the knowledge that we have of our car probably nobody in the paddock has the same knowledge of theirs because they've been changing it," Leclerc said.

"But on the other hand, obviously Red Bull did a massive step in the last day (of testing) with the new upgrades. I was pretty surprised to see the Mercedes at the beginning of testing here in Bahrain - very, very different concepts to everyone even though all the concepts are quite different. But they were quite extreme.

"So it's going to be definitely very interesting to see here in qualifying which one works better. But I'm happy with our approach and the fact we know very, very well our car already."

Leclerc added that there was a positive feeling at Ferrari before the new season.

"It's a good sign if people expect us to be fighting at the front," he said. "It means that we've been doing something right and what we've shown with testing - even though it's only testing - was enough to make people think that we are in front.

"We don't get carried away for now - as I said it's only testing. But it's good to have these headlines back because in the last two years, it didn't happen much."

Team-mate Carlos Sainz said he was trying to avoid putting any expectations on Ferrari's performance before the weekend.

"You still don't want to believe it completely," Sainz said. "In your mind, you want to come in here ready to fight for a win because as a driver you want to be ready - but also not trying to believe too much the hype around us and whatever we think we are.

"I'm ready for whatever comes because I've been preparing myself for this weekend for a while. But maybe a bit more after first, second and third practice I start putting my expectations somewhere higher or lower."

Ferrari view the rules change as an opportunity to return to competitiveness for the first time since 2018, and have also designed a new engine they believe has closed the deficit they had to Mercedes on the power-unit.

Sainz added: "You guys cannot imagine the effort that we put into this project, how long we have been working on this and the hours that I spent back in Maranello preparing this project.

"It is a big effort, big push by the whole team and I feel proud after the first six days of testing with the way the team has performed, how little reliability issues we had and how solid we were doing the whole testing."