Charles Leclerc gives telling answer on if Ferrari favours Lewis Hamilton over him

Charles Leclerc was asked whether Ferrari favours Lewis Hamilton over him ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Last weekend, the Ferrari duo enjoyed a decent Australian Grand Prix, finishing third and fourth behind the Mercedes duo of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.

On another day, a better strategic call could have allowed Leclerc and Hamilton to challenge for victory.

This weekend, Ferrari will be looking to win the Sprint and the main race as the Chinese Grand Prix weekend takes place in Shanghai.

Speaking to the media on Thursday afternoon, Leclerc was asked whether Ferrari have leaned towards Hamilton in the development of the SF-26.

As per La Gazzetta Ferrari on social media, the Monegasque replied: "No, absolutely not. The first race was on me: I changed the setup too much across the various FP sessions, looking for a balance I couldn’t find."

"Now I’m happy with the car, and we have enough freedom to adapt it to our style."

When asked if Ferrari can challenge Mercedes, Leclerc added: "I really hope so. In Qualifying, it’s going to take a lot of work in order to change the advantage that they have. Eight tenths in Melbourne was absolutely huge.

"There are things we are optimising that we haven’t optimised in Melbourne, so it will get better, but they still have a significant advantage. In the race [conditions], we are closer, so I hope that starting from this weekend we can put them under a bit more pressure."

Charles Leclerc is looking win the Chinese Grand Prix. Image: Getty

Meanwhile, Hamilton was upbeat after an encouraging outing around Melbourne last weekend.

The seven-time world champion said: "I had a lot of fun last week.

"Also to have extra [pre-season] testing was fun for us, because it’s normally only a day-and-a-half in the car or something like that before the first race."

Hamilton continued: "So, to get more running… then a lot discovered through the race from start to end. We knew that Mercedes were looking really strong, and little did we know it was as big a gap that we saw, but not an impossible gap to close.

"It’s just going to take all hands on deck, and I’m confident in my team doing absolutely everything back at the factory to try and close that gap."