Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Ferrari are “a step out in front” of F1 field – Chester

2019 F1 season

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Another of Ferrari’s rivals has admitted they appear to be the stand-out team of pre-season testing.

Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of pre-season testing for Ferrari yesterday.

Renault’s technical director Nick Chester believes Ferrari has a clear lead but the field is closely-knit behind them.

“I think it’s super-close. The times [on Thursday were] pretty close and they’ve been close other days but in a different order. We’re getting a better picture every day I’d say as people run lower fuel, but it is super-close.

“I can say at the moment is Ferrari look like they’re a step out in front. After that is very close. We probably haven’t seen Mercedes’ true pace yet but there’s a lot of other teams that are super-close and I wouldn’t want to try and rank exactly where they are.”

Renault ended last season fourth in the championship behind Red Bull. Chester says he isn’t sure yet whether they’ve closed the gap to that rival.

“It’s still a little tricky to tell. If anything it looks like the grid’s maybe closed up. So maybe everybody’s closer together.

“I haven’t got a really good picture of where Red Bull are at the moment so I couldn’t really estimate their true pace but if it does look like a lot of teams are pretty close.”

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2019 F1 season

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8 comments on “Ferrari are “a step out in front” of F1 field – Chester”

  1. Must be time to change the regs then.

  2. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    1st March 2019, 12:52

    I don’t buy it, and even if they are ahead now will they still be at Melbourne? More importantly will they still be ahead at the last race of the season? I doubt that hugely.

    1. Indeed.. Ferrari ALWAYS quick in Barcelona testing. Almost just as many years quickest as they didnt win any title…

  3. I hope the field has closed up, even though I expect Ferrari/Merc to be the front runners. If they have 2,3 or even 4 teams at their heals it will make for a more exciting championship.

    1. @johnrkh On that we can agree. I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to assume another Merc/Ferrari duel, and ya for me the testing seems to have shown a closer field. They’ve all certainly put in tons of laps for tons of data.

      I just saw that LH is saying he thinks Ferrari might have as much as half a second on them at the moment. Of course that remains to be seen, and come Australia they may all have further upgrades, and as we know it is going to depend on the track too, as to which team might be stronger. Mercedes have shown themselves to be relentless at figuring things out as the season goes along, so if Ferrari seems to have an edge ‘at the moment’ I would suggest they best amass as many points as they can early on.

      That’s why they run all the races before handing over the trophies, lol.

  4. Come q3 Australia Mercedes will be 1.5s infront

  5. Okay, so to all of you who are wondering whether Ferrari really are ahead, I heard something very interesting on the F1 TV commentary last week:

    The commentator said that the way to really know who is ahead in testing is to walk up and down the pit lane and study the behaviour of the mechanics from the different teams. He said they had done just that and Ferrari’s personnel were by far the most relaxed and happy looking.

    I found that very interesting.

    1. Interesting but can also easily be explained as the reason why they didn’t win anything for many many years..

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