Ricciardo: Mercedes and Red Bull 'not showing their cards'

Daniel Ricciardo says that while McLaren has been at the "pointy end" of pre-season testing, he believes that Mercedes and Red Bull are keeping their cards close to their chest.

McLaren and Ferrari have so far proven fastest in F1's preliminary test at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, where Lando Norris topped the timesheet on Wednesday while Charles Leclerc led the field on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Mercedes and Red Bull appeared to diligently work their way through their respective programmes, shying away from any performance runs.

For now, Ricciardo believes there is little to take away from the times put on the board by F1's top contenders.

"It's hard to quantify who's ahead of the moment, for sure," said the McLaren charger.

"On the one hand, all you want is laps and we've had both days over 100 laps. I think we're in a good place from that point of view.

"We seem to be at the pointy end of the times, but yeah, I don't think Mercedes and Red Bull have really done anything, showing any cards yet, so I don't really look [into it] too much.

"Ferrari, I think they look solid, they look consistently good. But yeah, I'm not trying to read too much into it yet."

• Read also - Russell: Mercedes 'certainly not ahead' of Ferrari and McLaren

On Thursday, Ricciardo concluded his first day at the wheel of McLaren's new MCL36 third fastest, 0.6 seconds adrift from Leclerc. But overall, the Aussie was satisfied with his opening day at the office.

"I think it was a positive day," said. "Every lap I do, I'm learning more and more, so that was positive.

"We did a few long runs and then a couple of shorter ones. We did everything we set out for. The new cars look cool; they feel pretty good as well.

"Let's see what happens now. We'll see how the test plays out. I think we've started off on the right foot."

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