Mercedes has danced around its rivals for the past two seasons, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg unstoppable in 16 of the 19 races in each of the past two years.

Sebastien Vettel, in his first season for Ferrari, picked up the crumbs from Mercedes' overladen plate in Malaysia, Hungary and Singapore. Trying to fathom concrete conclusions from preseason testing is nigh on impossible, such is the veil of secrecy teams delight in throwing up around car set-ups, fuel loads, tires, etc.

But on the face of it, eight days of testing at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya suggest Ferrari is not a million miles away from the Silver Arrows, as underlined by Rosberg: "We know Ferrari is very close - but we're not sure if we're ahead or behind."