Gary Anderson ranks the teams at the end of testing

It's always very difficult to get a real picture of what is happening during testing, mainly because of the differing fuel loads, with an extra 10kg slowing cars on average by around 0.33 seconds per lap. But in the end, everyone did do short, sharp runs for their fastest times, so there was no real difference in run lengths to factor in, which makes it more accurate.

Most teams ended up doing here best times on the softest C5 compound, and around Barcelona that tyre is a one-lap special. Pirelli's compound offsets are usually a bit of wishful thinking and never really make sense to me as they are too big compared to what's actually shown on track.

I normally form my own opinion watching what the drivers actually achieve, so for this new Pirelli tyre range I've gone with the following:

C1-C2 0.6s
C2-C3 0.5s
C3-C4 0.5s
C4-C5 0.3s

But as all the teams other than Red Bull ran on the softer C5 compound, only converting its day eight time from C3 to C5 is required.

These tyre compound deltas would vary slightly between cars as the softer tyre usually brings more understeer, so cars with a little understeer on the C3 will understeer more when they fit C4 or C5 tyres and not get the potential lap time out of them.

You can also see that it is difficult to get the front tyres working on the first timed lap as most drivers end up doing a faster first sector time on their attempt at a second timed lap. Unfortunately, the rear tyres have dropped off that little bit by then and in sector two and three, where traction is important, the time drops away.

Apply all that when necessary to the best times that the teams achieved during the eight days of testing around Barcelona and we end up with these lap times. This also includes the gap and percentage difference.

Adjusted test times

It's all very close. Normally, the bigger teams won't run really low fuel while the smaller teams might just do a bit of a qualifying run. The only caveat to add to all this is that Sebastian Vettel did a 1m16.720s on the C3 tyre and if you use my compound offset that will give him a 1m15.920s, which considering Ferrari stopped early on the last day of testing with an electrical problem might just mean we haven't quite seen the best of it.

Most teams had a trip back to the garages on the flatbed truck at some point over the eight days of testing. The majority were due to some sort of reliability problems, apart for Red Bull on two occasions when Pierre Gasly ran out of talent and hit the barriers and Ferrari when Vettel hit trouble (or a foreign object) with his front-left wheel and went into the barriers at Turn 3 very hard. This forced both teams to use up a significant amount of their very limited spares repairing the cars and also they lost some testing time.

This percentage difference then allows us to compare to last year's test, races two to five of 2018, the full 21-race season, races 18 to 21 and this year's pre-season tests, so we can then see who is heading where.

I have used races two to five as Melbourne is the first race and catches some teams by surprise. The track itself is also a bit of a one off, so to use it in the first four-race block can skew the average a little too much.

The order of performance is based on the adjusted times from the 2019 pre-season test, so hopefully an indication of what we would expect to see in Melbourne and onwards. Some teams, normally the bigger teams with experienced drivers with that bit of extra confidence, will have run more fuel in the car but as that is an unknown it's better not to guess.

How performance has changed over 12 months

Some interesting things stands out. This year's times are more linear from the fastest to the slowest. This might just be because the slower teams are running less fuel, but normally the approach and mindset of a team from year to year in testing is not so different.

In a real qualifying session, all the cars run low fuel and as you can see the performance profile comparing from qualifying to last year's test is not so different. Sauber, as it was then, made steady progress as the season progressed, Ferrari other than at the test and the first race of the year, Mercedes and Red Bull were very consistent and the others gained or lost a little bit race on race.

If this 2019 pre-season testing performance profile is correct then we are going to see a much closer season. When you get that then there is the odd opportunity for a smaller team to spring a surprise. Don't get me wrong, the big boys are still the big boys and on their day will dominate, but as we have seen in the past they don't always get it 100% right. We live in hope of some surprises.

1 Ferrari

Ferrari has looked strong since pre-season testing began. The car looks very stable and gives the drivers lots of confidence and on all of the tyre compounds it has looked well balanced.

Its front wing package is a nice and very simple concept that doesn't ask the airflow to do anything too critically, so it should be fairly benign to other downforce-producing components further downstream.

Reliability hasn't been all that fantastic, so this is the one thing that could let Ferrari down in the early races. The team must make sure that it doesn't make the mistakes of last year as the season progresses.

As far as drivers are concerned, Vettel did a 1m16.221s and Charles Leclerc did a 1m16.231s, so it's game on. Hopefully, the battle between these two will only help Ferrari's championship campaign and not interfere with it. But I'm afraid we may be hearing some lively radio traffic between the drivers and the pitwall at times.

2 Mercedes

Formula 1's dominant force had a slow start to the pre-season testing, but as you'd expect got into the battle at the front after bringing a major upgrade package to the second test.

But to achieve good times required digging deep, and on the last day of the test Mercedes wasn't shy about throwing another set or two of the softest tyres at the car.

On track, it looks a bit like the Ferrari. It's stable and has a lot of grip but doesn't seem to have as consistent a balance through the range of different corner speeds that Barcelona throws at you. I'm sure Mercedes will fine-tune it before Melbourne and from the times we have already seen it will be battle royale.

Driver-wise, no one can doubt that Lewis Hamilton is at the top of his game but can he maintain the pressure in another title fight? And as far as Valtteri Bottas is concerned, he must perform from race one. This is his last chance to hold onto a very coveted seat and there are others out there lined up to take it.

3 Renault

Renault has gone about this pre-season testing in a very business-like way, not trying to impress but delivering a time when going for it.

The car is definitely a step forward from last year and looks consistent on the track. With the team built back up to where it needs to be in terms of facilities and resources, this is exactly what was required from this test. Renault is now the third full works team and has to be compared to Ferrari and Mercedes.

Engine-wise, Renault claims to have moved forward this year more than any other since the hybrid power units were introduced. It has to show that on track.

Driver-wise it has a strong line-up. In Nico Hulkenberg Renault has the consistency to be able to understand where it has come from and in new signing Daniel Riccardo it has a proven race winner. I'm pretty sure they will work together for the good of the team, and both will have smiles on their faces along the way.

4 Toro Rosso

This could actually be a big year for Toro Rosso. It is now working more closely with sister team Red Bull and, using the same Honda engines, the car characteristics will be similar.

This is Toro Rosso's second year with Honda and everything always runs a lot smoother as you build a relationship with your partners. The car again looks well balanced but perhaps might just lack a little bit of downforce.

Driver-wise, it looks like Alex Albon has been a been a real find. When you consider he never drove an F1 car until Toro Rosso did the shakedown, he's been impressive throughout testing. Daniil Kvyat has the speed if he can control his aggression. He had a pretty bad deal last time, but he will have learned and can deliver the results given the tools.

5 Red Bull

Red Bull will come away from pre-season testing a little disappointed. Not only did it have a couple of crashes with new boy Gasly, but it wasn't really able to show its true potential. But the car looks like a Red Bull, meaning it has lots of grip and the drivers can commit to the corner as aggressively as any other car.

It brought updates daily to the second part of the test so as these are all things that would have been in the pipeline before the car actually sat on the ground I'm pretty sure more parts will change before the cars run in Melbourne.

It's a new era for Red Bull. After being with Renault since 2007, it has now teamed up with Honda. There is big commitment from Honda to get it right and being with Red Bull leaves no place to hide. Red Bull expects wins, perhaps not on a regular basis this year, but a few victories are necessary otherwise Max Verstappen might just start sniffing around to see which other teams might just have a seat.

In Verstappen, Red Bull has a driver that just has the raw speed and he is fantastic to watch. He does things with the car that others can only dream of. Gasly is the new boy in the mothership. Yes, he drove for Toro Rosso last year so is well known by Red Bull but the pressures are very different. He blotted his copy book in testing with a couple of crashes and personally I haven't yet seen anything that really excites me about him.

6 McLaren

Over the last few years, I have been fairly critical of McLaren but from what I have seen during pre-season testing I believe it has turned the corner.

The car looks good when on new tyres and pushing for a time, so I think it is being run on fairly low fuel. That said, qualifying in Melbourne is critical so it's better to go there well prepared.

When the car is on the longer runs, which require higher fuel, it is not as consistent and it looks like the rears start to go away fairly early.

New technical chief James Key joining just after the first race of the season should bring McLaren some knowledge from the outside world of how Red Bull and Toro Rosso went about their business.

Driver-wise, Carlos Sainz Jr now has lots of experience and is very capable of leading the team to a new level. Rookie Lando Norris has the speed and hopefully will have the time to get his head around what F1 is all about.

7 Haas

During the first week of testing, the car looked very good; stable with good grip and the drivers could commit to the corner with confidence. But from that as a base I expected slightly faster times from them during the second week.

Perhaps Haas just kept its powder dry and knows what it's capable of so will let it show in Melbourne.

The team threw away a lot of points last year, so that is an area it must improve on. It doesn't matter how fast the car is, if you can't get it to the chequered flag without problems then it is all wasted.

Driver-wise, Haas has a reasonable pairing in Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen. Both of them could do with staying out of trouble more regularly.

8 Alfa Romeo

This is the team that probably progressed more than anyone else over the 2018 season. This was also due to Leclerc getting up to speed with F1, which he certainly did impressively and he was rewarded with a seat with Ferrari. Kimi Raikkonen went the other way and is now driving for the team where it all started for him.

With a closer relationship with Ferrari than it had last year, and taking a leaf out of how Haas uses as much as possible brought in from Ferrari, 2019 should be another season of moving up the ladder for what is now Alfa Romeo.

The car started pre-season testing looking fairly well balanced, if a little short of ultimate downforce. But as the test has gone on the car seems to have deteriorated.

As the times have started to tumble, probably because the track is getting more and more rubbered in and offering a bit more grip, the rear looks nervous - forcing the drivers to work a little harder.

With the car now a fully Alfa entry, Ferrari is not going to stand back and allow it to flounder so in the end I think it will be a best of the rest contender. But it might just take a few races before that materialises.

You can't question Raikkonen's commitment and now in a much less political environment I am sure he will wring the car's neck on most occasions. Team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi is someone that I felt deserved a chance a couple of years ago but when he got it he made a few too many errors. He now has a second chance and he needs to show he can handle the pressure. Matched against Raikkonen he has a good yardstick.

9 Racing Point

As Force India, this has always been a team that has given a very good bang for your buck. Now, having been taking over by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll, it has the finances to show its true worth. This won't happen overnight, but at least now it can plan for future developments and carry them out.

This team has always come to the pre-season tests aiming to get the reliability sorted for the start of the season and, knowing that an update would be available before the first race, the ultimate performance was not the main objective. Now, with its new owners, Racing Point seems to be heading the same way.

The difference this year is it will definitely be able to manufacture the update parts and looking at the performance, that's needed if it is going to be at the pointy end of that midfield battle. That area is going to be tougher than it has been for many years, blink in the wrong place on a qualifying lap and you could lose half a dozen places.

Sergio Perez is now part of the furniture at Racing Point and he knows that none of the top teams are going to give him the big offer, so he can relax and give his best to this team. But if he relaxes too much I'm pretty sure the underrated Lance Stroll will very quickly be nipping at his heels.

Stroll is someone that I don't believe has had the best opportunity to show his genuine talent. Yes, coming through the lower formulas he might have had the finances to do it right but still to get the success he has had on his way to F1 he has also got to be talented. And remember, he is only 20.

10 Williams

Williams missed the first two and a half days of pre-season, leaving it only five and a half days to get through about a months of work.

Paddy Lowe has stated that it was no individual component that created this situation, it was just that these cars are so much more complicated than they were a few years ago and with all the extra components required Williams just messed up its planning.

If this had been Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari you could live with it because their new car performance hit ratio over the last few years has been pretty good. But Williams is a team that needed track time to get to the performance sweet spot of the car - if, that is, there is a sweet spot in there somewhere.

No pressure, but for the sake of the future of Williams this car needs to work. I don't mean it needs to go out and win races but it needs to be able to qualify and finish races in the top 10.

If Williams can do that it will have moved forward but from initial testing it looks like that might not be easy. Williams has a better car than last year but the others look like they also have that luxury.

I'm a bit of a fan of George Russell. He conducts himself in a very professional manner and his championship success in GP3 and Formula 2 shows he has the talent. As for Robert Kubica, he is not the Kubica of old but he is still a talented driver and needs to be judged on his current performance.

Claire Williams has said that with his engineering mind Kubica could make a good technical director. But he needs to be careful he doesn't get too involved in the engineering side of the company and just focuses on just driving the wheels off the car.

Summing up, I genuinely believe that the change in regulations has reduced the spread across the field. Doing away with all those front wing turning vanes has meant there is less chance to get it wrong. Has it done anything for the racing? Only time will tell, but I don't think it has done any harm.

The larger rear wing giving more downforce and drag with a bigger DRS opening will increase the speed differential between two cars. But this is not overtaking, this just takes away from the days when drivers had to find a solution to overtaking. Now you don't have to so no-one other than Ricciardo, Hamilton or Verstappen bothers. They know to just wait until the straight and pull off a 'mirror signal manoeuvre' overtake.

If the season unfolds as testing has then we are in for a good one both at the front and in the midfield. We need to remember that no matter how good the drivers or cars are, or how many there are on the grid, there will always be a winner and a loser. What I am hoping for is that that winner can be different from week to week.

Roll on Melbourne.