Mattia Binotto is following Mercedes' lead and playing down Ferrari's performance in pre-season testing, insisting the Brackley squad and Red Bull are the real favourites heading into the 2022 F1 season.
After a strong showing in Barcelona, Ferrari enjoyed another productive three days of testing in Bahrain, its F1-75 consistently showcasing its healthy pace but also boasting solid reliability.
Red Bull upstaged Ferrari on the final day of running at Sakhir, but the Italian outfit, if it can keep its act together next week, must be considered as a force to be reckoned in Bahrain.
And yet a conservative Binotto, apparently inspired by Mercedes' self-effacing assessment of its own level of performance in testing, insists on portraying his team as an "outsider" relative to its two main rivals.
©Ferrari
"We are not the favourites," he said after Saturday's final session in Bahrain where Charles Leclerc clocked in second behind pace setter Max Verstappen.
"I think the favourites are the teams that were the best last year because they are strong teams, they have proved they can be very fast, they’ve got a fantastic team.
"On-track I think they are showing that they are very, very fast. So I think if they are [favourites], we are outsiders.
"It’s true that we have a good start of testing and a good start of season. But becoming favourites – I think we need first to have good races."
Binotto took note of the strong performance of Red Bull's updated RB18 on Saturday and reckons Mercedes, despite concluding this week's test one step behind its rivals, will head into next weekend's curtain raiser with an improved Silver Arrow W13.
"I think both Red Bull and Mercedes have very strong and fast cars," he said. "Those teams are very strong as well.
"I can see that even on the last day Red Bull have brought updates to their car, so improving and showing how good they are in developing. I’m pretty sure from now through to the first race, maybe Mercedes as well will improve.
"So they are very strong and very fast. I hope that we can be outsiders, I hope that we can somehow try to challenge them, that would be great from our side."
©Ferrari
Although downplaying his team's chances, the Scuderia boss cast a positive view overall on Ferrari's pre-season preparations.
"Overall, it has been six good days of testing," said Binotto.
"Clean, making a lot of mileage, running reliably, I think getting a lot of data which was very important to the start to the season, uUnderstanding the car, correlating it with, back at Maranello, all the tools, the simulators, the wind tunnel, I think it has been positive in that respect.
"So after six days we know pretty much our car. We know it’s certainly better. There is still much to come but positive, I would say."
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