Listen to this article Ferrari enjoyed a solid start to F1’s pre-season running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week, completing more laps than any other team. Drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both featured towards the top of the timesheets throughout the test, prompting Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to talk up Ferrari’s performance and potential this year. Hamilton pondered whether Ferrari’s decision to suspend development early in 2021 to focus on its 2022 car could leave it “several months ahead” of the field. But Binotto said he expected Mercedes to bring a raft of updates for its W13 car to the second test in Bahrain, giving Ferrari more reason to worry about its rivals than Hamilton. “I’m pretty sure that [Mercedes] will be two or three months ahead of us by the time we will be in Bahrain,” said Binotto when asked about Hamilton’s comments. “So I think that it’s very difficult today to judge the performance and the relative competitiveness between the teams. “But what’s important for us was to collect data here, and I think we can be satisfied for the amount of laps we did, collecting data and again, and will be analysed back at Maranello. “I heard that there will be rumours that our com …