Leclerc plays down F1 talk despite ‘special’ test

Charles Leclerc admits it was "even more special" to set the fastest time during Tuesday's testing for Ferrari at the Hungaroring, but played down talk about a future F1 seat.

While Stoffel Vandoorne set the pace for the majority of the opening day in Budapest, Leclerc went quickest with a time of 1m17.746s on the soft compound tire. The Formula 2 championship leader was pleased with his performance and admitted being fastest was an added bonus after completing 98 laps during his only day in the car this week.

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"The day was incredible," Leclerc said. "Driving for Ferrari has been a dream since I was a child for me, so it just feels incredible to be driving for them and obviously topping the day – even though it doesn't mean anything – is even more special.

"I'm satisfied. To be honest I still need to speak to my engineers to find out how satisfied they are with me and then I will be fully satisfied with myself."

Asked by RACER if the day had been a good opportunity to try and impress Ferrari – with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen yet to sign contracts for 2018 – Leclerc replied: "I mean it's always important to impress anybody, but to be honest today it wasn't really the main goal.

"The main goal was to get mileage in the car, try to do the best job I could for them and I hope they have seen some good bits about me."

Having been heavily linked with a Sauber seat for 2018 after the Swiss team announced a Ferrari power unit deal this weekend, Leclerc added: "Obviously as I said I need to impress as many people as I can and I will give my best to do that. Then if I have an opportunity at the end of the year I will grab it with two hands but for now I am just focusing on Formula 2."

Leclerc tested for Ferrari at Silverstone in 2016 but Tuesday was his first taste of a 2017 car, and having raced in F2 on Saturday and Sunday he admitted there is a big difference between the categories.

"It's another world now. Last year I was going from GP3 to Formula 1 so the step felt absolutely huge. Now I'm doing Formula 2 to Formula 1 and the step feels a lot smaller obviously because the cars in Formula 2 are already very, very fast, but with this aero and these wide tires it's absolutely incredible."