Are Ferrari sandbagging in pre-season testing?

Mercedes aren't taking Ferrari's underperformance in the first round of pre-season testing in Barcelona at face value, and feel that they may be holding back, according to a post made to their official website.

The Prancing Horse have suffered a largely miserable few days, losing laps due to technical reasons, and when the car was running their pace was noticeably down on Mercedes and Red Bull.

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Italian media scathing on Ferrari's pre-season performance

Team principal Mattia Binotto was forced to admit that "The other teams are faster than us at the moment."

But Mercedes are taking nothing for granted, and in their own in-house review of Barcelona testing it was clear that they are not taking anything for granted in terms of their current advantage over their rivals, particularly given Ferrari's apparent use of their power unit.

It states: "Will Red Bull bring a significant upgrade package to the second test? Why have Ferrari spent this test running their PU (power unit) consistently at much lower levels than their partner teams?

“What we can say is that we predict the battle in Melbourne at the front is going to be tight.

"We can also see that the midfield have closed on the front and that there is some considerable midfield swing compared to last year’s competitive order."

Round two of pre-season testing begins on Wednesday, again in Barcelona.

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