“The others are faster than us at the moment, I believe”
Champions Mercedes suspect Ferrari are considerably faster than the Italian team let on in Formula One’s first pre-season test in Spain, with the gap between the top three and the rest closing.
Teams have six days of testing before the season-opener in Australia on March 15 and the engineers have plenty of data to crunch at the halfway stage.
On paper, Mercedes were more than a second quicker than the next team at the Circuit de Catalunya and also covered the most distance.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto told reporters he was less optimistic than last year, when his team’s pace was evident to see.
“The others are faster than us at the moment, I believe,” he said.
Mercedes, who are chasing an unprecedented seventh successive title double this year with Lewis Hamilton also out to equal Michael Schumacher’s record seven crowns, were not about to crow.
“No-one wants the egg on their face of claiming that they are faster than another team, because they can never know for certain what was hidden or what is coming next,” the team observed in an assessment on their website.
“Will Red Bull bring a significant upgrade package to the second test? Why have Ferrari spent this test running their PU (power unit) consistently at much lower levels than their partner teams?
“What we can say is that we predict the battle in Melbourne at the front is going to be tight. We can also see that the midfield have closed on the front and that there is some considerable midfield swing compared to last year’s competitive order.”
Ferrari were only eighth fastest of the 10 teams.
Reuters
