Sebastian Vettel sets fastest time in F1 Testing but says Mercedes are still the team to beat

Sebastian Vettel reckons Mercedes are still the team to beat in 2017 despite Ferrari's scintillating form in pre-season testing.

In the penultimate day of running at Barcelona, Vettel set the fastest time of winter running so far as he out-paced Lewis Hamilton by three tenths of a second.

In an eye-catching morning session at the Circuit de Catalunya, Vettel:

* Set a lap time of 1:19.024 to out-pace the previous test-best of Valtteri Bottas by almost three tenths despite lifting off in the final sector.

* Produced four laps under 1:19.5 on the softs with a test-best of 1:19.341; Ferrari are still the only team to lap in the 1:19s on Pirelli's soft tyres.

* Also all-but matched the fastest time set in winter testing so far on supersofts when he followed Bottas' lap of 1:19.310 on Tuesday with a 1:19.314.

Fastest lap per team Team Driver Date Tyre Time Mercedes Valtteri Bottas Day Three Ultrasofts 1:19.705 Williams Felipe Massa Day Five Supersofts 1:19.726 Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo Day Five Ultrasofts 1:19.900 Ferrari Sebastian Vettel Day Five Softs 1:19.906 Force India Esteban Ocon Day Five Supersofts 1:21.347 Renault Jolyon Palmer Day Three Softs 1:21.396 Haas Kevin Magnussen Day Five Softs 1:21.676 Toro Rosso Daniil Kvyat Day Five Softs 1:21.743 Sauber Marcus Ericsson Day Three Supersofts 1:21.824 McLaren Stoffel Vandoorne Day Five Softs 1:22.537

But despite Ferrari's formidable form, and Hamilton's claim that Ferrari should already be considered favourites for the new season, Vettel says the Scuderia are still playing catch-up.

"Mercedes are still very fast if you look at their long-run pace," Vettel said. "Look at the number of laps they have done. They are the ones to beat. Historically, look at how slow they go in testing before ramping it up for races.

"Right now, it doesn't matter where we are here. You don't get any points now."

Asked whether he had backed off on his fastest laps, Vettel replied: "It's not always intentional. You could see what we were trying to do this morning. We were going faster than the rest of testing."

Pre-season testing is an infamously unreliable barometer of the pecking order heading into a new season and Ferrari have attracted a reputation in recent years of impressing during the 'winter season' only to under-perform and underwhelm when the real action begins.

"If you look at the timesheets at the end of the day of course it's important to be somewhere up there but our target is just to go through our programme," said Vettel. "We are a little bit behind but we are making progress.

"The team is working very hard and last year's experiences but have helped us grow as a team."

Ferrari and Vettel failed to win a race in the whole of 2016 but the SF70-H has performed impressively throughout the two weeks of testing at Barcelona with technical analysis of their new car suggesting the Scuderia have exploited a loophole around the design of their sidepods to steal a march on their rivals.

"The car is much better than last year because of the nature of the formula," added Vettel. "Things are making sense and I feel happy in the car but it is still early days."

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