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