Ferrari are in a race of their own but behind them, Renault’s technical director Nick Chester believes it is “super-close.”
Despite a few hiccups during the final week of testing, Ferrari set the pace on Thursday and again on Friday to close out the pre-season with four P1s.
Sebastian Vettel concluded Friday’s running with a best time of 1:16.2 to sit 0.003 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
But behind him, third to tenth were separated by a second on the day.
“I think it’s super-close,” Chester told RaceFans.
“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.”
Pressed as to where Renault, best of the rest last season, are in the pecking order, Chester said: “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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