MOTORSPORT: Renault ahead of Red Bull?

While Daniel Ricciardo knows it’s going to be hard to add to his seven grand prix victories over the two years of his Renault contract, on the most optimistic assessment his new Formula 1 steed is the third-best car in this year’s field.

Mercedes fired a big shot on the final day of pre-season testing in Barcelona without quite matching Ferrari, but the Renault RS19 was the third-fastest make – 0.622 seconds a lap off Ferrari’s best – and covered the third-most kilometres over the eight days of trials.

Ricciardo’s team of the past five years, Red Bull Racing, did not complete a full race simulation with its RB15 and was only seventh-fastest of the 10 makes after its switch from Renault to Honda power.

RBR was outpaced by its smaller sister team Toro Rosso, which is entering its second season with Honda’s V6 hybrid power unit.

Sceptics say that F1 pre-season testing means little because of differing fuel loads, engine modes, track conditions and tyre compounds, but – in the absence of any other gauge – it is the only indicator.

Ricciardo’s replacement at RBR, Pierre Gasly, was the quickest of that team’s two drivers, but Max Verstappen – more than 0.6 seconds slower – was the only one of 21 drivers to test in Barcelona not to run on the softest of Pirelli’s new tyre compounds, the C5.

Verstappen did limited running on the final day after Gasly had crashed the RB15 heavily the day before.

RBR professes to be happy with the Honda power unit, but the numbers aren’t on the board – perhaps pointing to Ricciardo’s new team already having overtaken his old one.

Not that anyone in the F1 paddock is daring to say that and Autosport compiled what it called a ‘fuel-and-tyre-corrected’ list that had RBR third and Renault sixth – about a quarter of a second slower and with Ferrari-engined American team Haas and Toro Rosso between them.

Ricciardo’s new teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, entering his third season with Renault, was 0.271 seconds faster than the Australian and said he was greatly encouraged by the French manufacturer’s “good progress from last year, in particular on the power unit”.

Renault’s senior F1 executive, Cyril Abiteboul, said it achieved its goals in testing and its engine performance “is matching our expectations and the chassis concept is good”, although it does not have the advantage of RBR’s design genius Adrian Newey.

Ricciardo said it had been a “pretty good” second week in Barcelona after Hulkenberg and him were first and third on the first week’s timesheet.

Now preparing to fly to Melbourne for the season-opening GP on March 15-17, Ricciardo said: “We’ve done a decent amount of laps with some consistent running. It will take some time to catch the front teams … and we are realistic.

“We are making progress but the bigger steps will happen gradually going forward. I’m heading to Melbourne feeling that I belong here [at Renault] and I just want to go racing now.”

Five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton came within 0.003 seconds of matching Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel’s best time of Barcelona testing on the final day.

But race simulations by Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari newcomer Charles Leclerc late in the week indicated the Prancing Horse stable’s SF90 was about 0.35 seconds a lap faster than the Mercedes W10 on average.

On that basis, Ferrari would be about 20 seconds clear of Mercedes at the chequered flag in a GP, but the SF90 has had its reliability issues and did about 20 per cent fewer kilometres over the pre-season.

Hamilton has estimated the gap between the two top teams at closer to half a second a lap and is not happy with Pirelli’s new rubber, which has thinner-gauge tread intended as protection against blistering and overheating.

Autosport’s F1 editor Ben Anderson said the Merc is “much more a work in progress than is usual at this stage”.

Hamilton said that Ferrari had clearly mounted a bigger challenge to Mercedes’ five-year dominance but: “We don’t mind the challenge. It just means we have to work harder. We have a hill to climb, but we know how to do it.”

Ferrari’s new team principal, Mattia Binotto, said: “I believe Mercedes will be very strong in Australia and it would be completely wrong to think we are faster than them. I think they will be very, very close.”

Of the other traditional teams, McLaren appears to have made progress – it was even fastest on some days, on the C5 tyres – but Williams looks set to bring up the rear after doing less than half the kilometres of Mercedes and being consistently slowest.

Robert Kubica, returning to F1 racing with Williams after almost a decade’s absence because of injuries from a rally crash, says he’s feeling “only 20 per cent” prepared because of the limited testing.

Many milestones will be celebrated at next weekend’s Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport.

It’s the 30th anniversary of the event on the Victorian island, where 50 years of Formula Ford in Australia, as well as the 50th anniversaries of the Holden Dealer Team, the Bolwell Nagari and the Alfa Romeo Club as well as the 60th of the Mini, will be marked.

All of this after Perth’s Wanneroo Park – now Barbagallo Raceway – celebrated its 50th ‘birthday’ yesterday with 240 cars in 14 categories racing on its resurfaced track.

The Victorian Historic Racing Register says it has 56 Formula Fords entered to compete at Phillip Island for a trophy honouring Larry Perkins.

It’s also boasting a huge gathering of Bathurst winners, with Dick Johnson the patron of the event, while among the hundreds of cars entered are a 1964 Cooper-Maserati T61P that was raced by Roy Salvadori and a Dulon Ferrari Dino 2.0-litre V6 sports car.