Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne Not Getting Carried Away

Antonio Calanni/Associated Press

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne is refusing to get carried away over his team's performance in the first pre-season test.

The Scuderia's cars topped the timesheets on three of the four days, but Marchionne doesn't think we'll get a true measure of where everyone stands until after the next test. He is quoted by BBC Sport, saying:

I am encouraged by the performance of the new car, though it is one thing to do a quick lap, another to do an entire race. I have so much confidence in the work of the boys. I am proud of their work.

Now we'll see when the World Championship starts in Australia. I do not expect miracles, but it is important to see progress.

At the Barcelona test, I expect the ultimate proof of what we have done so far.

Ferrari's pace at Jerez was eye-opening, but it's clear they were doing a very different programme to everyone else. Andrew Benson's analysis of data from the test shows their average lap time was an incredible 1.4 seconds quicker than that of any other team, and 1.5 seconds quicker than Mercedes.

At the end of 2014 Ferrari were nowhere, more than a second slower than Mercedes. It's inconceivable that under stable regulations they could have swung it around by 2.5 seconds.

Cutting the gap by just half a second from last year to this would be impressive.

The Catalunya test begins on February 19, but even that will not tell the whole story. The first chance we'll get to see where each team really is will be in qualifying for the first race of the season.