Chandhok: Ferrari certainly looks like the car to beat

In a report published on DriveTribe, looking back on testing ahead of the season opener this weekend, Chandhok pointed out, "None of the teams have had a clean run through testing with Ferrari suffering some reliability issues: Mercedes lost time to an engine change and Red Bull had to contend with two sizeable accidents from new boy Pierre Gasly leaving them with a lot of damaged parts, especially with the gearboxes."

"Every year I go and stand in exactly the same places trackside which gives me an opportunity to see year on year just where the battle lies between these teams, beyond just studying the lap times."

"Last year, Mercedes shied away from doing any form of proper performance runs on the softer tyres but the long runs showed quite clearly that they were ahead and when we got to Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton duly took pole by seven-tenths of a second."

"This year it seems to be a different story however as the Ferrari certainly looks like the car to beat. Out on track, the car seems very forgiving to drive and I don’t think that either driver looked like they were close to the limit."

"Watching at Turn 9, it was mighty impressive on Sebastian Vettel’s performance runs how he was changing up a gear when turning in to the corner while most others needed to have a lift through there!"

"In the changes of direction through Turns 2 and 3 as well as corners like 11 and 12, the Ferrari does seem more compliant and easy to drive. While the Mercedes clearly generates a good amount of downforce, it certainly seems edgier and harder work for the drivers."

"On the long runs, there were a few occasions in Turn 1 and Turn 7 when the Ferrari drivers looked like they had gone in a bit deep or missed the line a bit, but the car seemed to allow them to gently bring it back in line by the mid-corner without losing a lot of minimum speed or being much later back on the throttle."

"Ferrari seem to have improved the traction and power delivery as well. The Mercedes in previous years looked like a more planted car when the drivers were accelerating out of corners with any steering lock like Turns 4, 5 and 12, but now the Ferrari seems to be a match for it."

The consensus in the paddock is that this year's championship title race will for sure include Ferrari and Mercedes, but the jury is out on how Red Bull will fare as they embark on their new Honda power era. The confidence is high, the big talk plentiful but can they tick all the boxes and moutn a serious campaign? Time will tell...

Chandhok said of the Blues, "It’s really hard to pick where Red Bull are to be honest as they didn’t do any performance runs on the final two days due to Gasly’s crash and a reliability issue for Max."

"This means that we’re having to turn to the long runs to try and work out where the team are and the consensus amongst a few team people I spoke with, as well as my long run analysis, does seem to suggest that they are a tenth or two behind Mercedes, so certainly closer to the reigning World Champions than they ended last year, but further behind Ferrari," predicted the former F1 driver turned Sky F1 pundit.

While Mercedes appeared to be on the back foot during testing, they have the capacity to turn things around very rapidly. They showed this by appearing at the first test in Barcelona with the W10 and a week later rolling out a vastly different 'B-spec' W10 to compare aero solutions on the respective packages they trialled over the eight days in Spain.

Furthermore, the team's technical chief James Allison said in a recent interview that the version of the car that will take to the track for FP1 in Melbourne, on 15 May, will again be vastly different setting the stage for another frantic development war between the Big Three of F1.