Gary Anderson's F1 2017 pecking order

It's almost time to find out who has shown their wares during testing, and who has been sandbagging. But after 21,489 kilometres of pounding around Barcelona, a picture has emerged that sets the stage for this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

Teams, especially the top ones, will always keep that little bit of performance hidden by running with a little more fuel on board when they go for their fastest lap or, if they really have confidence in where they are, by a driver having a little lift in each section of the track just to save that last tenth of a second for when it really matters.

But it is important every team runs its car to the maximum just to ensure everything is working as predicted. It's very easy when you are right on the limit, with maximum braking and corner forces, for a small fuel pickup problem to arise that can cause a misfire. Or an oil pressure sensor might pick up a low-pressure spike and shut the engine down.

Testing is about preparation, and if you try to be too clever it can come back and bite you.

Because of the different drivers and different tyres, to assess the pecking order after testing I have only really looked at chassis performance. If one driver can do a time, then the other one should be able to match it, or they are in the wrong job.

The fastest time of testing was set by Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen on super-soft Pirellis, so I have adjusted the times from all the cars to give a final time of what everyone should have done on this tyre based on their quick runs.

To achieve this, I have worked on the basis of a step of 0.6s from medium to soft, 0.4s from soft to super-soft and 0.2s from super-soft to ultra-sort. I think this is fair for Barcelona as it is an aggressive track on tyres, and you don't always get a better lap time from a softer tyre because it starts to go away late in the lap.

So that gives us an adjusted super-soft order of:

1 Ferrari 1m18.634s
2 Mercedes 1m19.310s
3 Red Bull 1m19.438s
4 Williams 1m19.620s
5 Toro Rosso 1m20.037s
6 Renault 1m20.085s
7 Force India 1m20.316s
8 Haas 1m20.704s
9 McLaren 1m21.548s
10 Sauber 1m21.570s

1 FERRARI
Testing total: 2765km (2nd)

Throughout the eight days of testing, the Ferrari SF70H stood out as an excellent step forward from where the team was in 2016. Ferrari was fastest on half of the days and no matter who was watching on circuit they always commented on how precise and consistent the car was.

It didn't appear that the drivers were having to work overtime, and on the long runs the car was quick and tyre degradation didn't seem to be a big problem.

As a team, Ferrari went about its business in a much more professional way than I have seen for a long time. Ferrari knows it has the car capable of big points in the early part of the season, and it's only the team that can let itself down now.

2 MERCEDES
Testing total: 3170km (1st)

I wouldn't count out Mercedes just yet. After all, it has always been good at getting the best from the package and I expect Mercedes will continue to do that. On the short runs, the car seemed good, but it had the look of a car that was front-end limited and on long runs the W08 seemed to develop a detectible understeer.

In the past, many people have asked me if it was the Mercedes chassis or the power unit that made it so competitive. I always said it was both, because the car looked good and the engine obviously had the power and driveability.

Now, Mercedes will be relying a little bit more on the engine's winter developments. The chassis needs some development to get it more consistent and balanced.

3 RED BULL
Testing total: 1978km (7th)

Red Bull is where we would expect it to be - right in the mix but it just needs that bit more performance to be in the hunt. I said at the first test that the car lacked the 'wow' factor and I stick by that. This is a team that won four successive championships, and it didn't get there without a wow factor. That's what it needs to find for these new rules.

Having said that, it does mean there is room for developments that will close that gap. Red Bull will not be standing still waiting to see where it is. It has a good record for bringing parts to the track and them working immediately and I don't expect that to change this year.

Supposedly, Renault has made big strides this year. And it will need to have done because both Ferrari and Mercedes seem to have with their engines.

4 WILLIAMS
Testing total: 2314km (3rd)

It was a strong showing from Williams in pre-season despite a difficult first test. The car looks well-balanced and could, in Felipe Massa's hands, take it back to the front of the midfield and maybe even give the top three a hard time on occasions.

With Paddy Lowe, the Mercedes ex-technical director, now there heading up the technical side Williams will have a clear reference to where it stands against the best so, in reality, only the financial resource will limit its performance. By signing Lance Stroll, who comes with a very healthy budget the team should have the development commitment to move forward.

As for Stroll, he is no slouch. He may have brought money to the team but he is fairly handy as well. You don't dominate European F3 without talent, so give him a few races to get some experience under his belt and he will be right there with Massa.

5 TORO ROSSO
Testing total: 1689km (9th)

Toro Rosso kept its powder dry for most of the test and just got on with what it needed to do. But in the end it put in some very competitive times. It wasn't without problems, but I suppose you can say that's what testing is about.

Both drivers are going to spur each other on and the Renault engine replacing the year-old Ferrari can only be a positive.

For a small team, it has always had too much to do. What I mean is that by having three engine supplier changes in four seasons that takes up a lot of engineering capacity just to stand still.

But I have a lot of faith in technical director James Key. He is a deep thinker and knows what it takes to move forward. Toro Rosso has a good, solid car with an engine that is up to the latest spec, so it is now time to focus on the little niceties that will improve the performance of the car.

6 RENAULT
Testing total: 1727km (8th)

From testing, Renault seems to be firmly established in the middle of the bunch. But that is going to be a very congested part of the grid. Get it right, you'll be top 10, but one blink and you could be on the eighth row.

Renault has, without doubt, made a lot of progress since 2016. The car looks a lot nicer to drive on the bumps and over kerbs, but it still lacks the overall grip of the top teams. That's to be expected given a lot of good people left Enstone and it takes time to build back up again.

7 FORCE INDIA
Testing total: 2271km (5th)

By finishing fourth in last year's constructors' championship, it could be that the team's top brass set expectations for 2017 that were a bit too high. After all, third was a long way off last year.

Force India is a team where my heart still lies because it rose from the embers of what was Jordan. There's still a lot of staff there from those days.

The car looks good on track, but like the Renault it doesn't have the overall grip of the top teams. But getting a big pay day for finishing fourth last year and with the sponsor cheque for new pink colour scheme the budget for developments hopefully won't be too restricted.

Technical director Andrew Green has a very capable team and can get on with moving forward.

8 HAAS
Testing total: 2067km (6th)

I've always said the second year is the toughest. Unless you are a big team and very well-structured, designing and building a new car is no easy task, especially when there is a regulation change of the magnitude we have had for 2017.

From what I have seen, the 2017 Haas is a good one and looks as good as any of the other midfield runners. It looks well-balanced, but needs the overall grip to increase. But the team seems pretty happy with where it is.

Worryingly, Romain Grosjean still seems to have the braking problem he had last year, whereas new team-mate Kevin Magnussen doesn't seem to suffer from it - at least, not to the same level.

Haas has a strong driver line-up and if it keeps up with developments, it can move forward. But that braking problem needs to be fixed either by component changes or the drivers adapting.

9 McLAREN
Testing total: 1229km (10th)

In my day the school report card would say 'must try harder' - mine certainly did, anyway.

Everyone at McLaren-Honda is putting in maximum effort, but it's very easy just to work flat out and go nowhere. First of all, you need to identify the problems and the go off and fix them.

It's too easy just do everything again from scratch, as Honda has done, and just end up with different problems.

McLaren is a team that has won many races and championships. My way of looking at things is that it should be captaining the ship and the problems it is currently having stem from how it went about its business some three years ago. It's not the problems of today, but of mismanagement in the past.

Back then, I didn't see anyone grabbing the problem by the throat and getting on with fixing it. This current sorry state is the result.

What I saw at Barcelona was not just a Honda problem, even though there are clearly plenty of problems there. McLaren has work to do on the chassis, but while it's capable of fixing that, it's what happens outside of Woking that could make or break such a great team.

10 SAUBER
Testing total: 2279km (4th)

On track, it doesn't look like the Sauber has the grip level of any of the other cars. It ran wider earlier than most through the long, fast Turn 3 and in general the drivers were on the brakes that little bit earlier.

I'm not saying it's a bad car, for it seems to have no vices, but it can't carry the corner speeds with the drivers able to keep the throttle in.

One of the bigger problems, which will get worse as the season unfolds, is that Sauber has a year-old Ferrari power unit. With unlimited development for the engine manufacturers this year, it will be left behind pretty quickly.

So the priority is to focus on reliability and hope Sauber can nick a few points early on. Otherwise, the focus will be on next year, as with only 10 teams Sauber is guaranteed a good pay day at the end of the season whatever happens in 2017.

PROGRESS FROM TEST ONE

To sum up who used the four-day gap between the two tests to move forward, a comparison of time suggests the following time gain

1 Toro Rosso 2.503s
2 Force India 2.193s
3 Williams 2.056s
4 Haas 1.414s
5 Red Bull 1.315s
6 McLaren 1.228s
7 Ferrari 1.228s
8 Renault 0.911s
9 Mercedes 0.595s
10 Sauber 0.154s

Mercedes has admitted some developments for the second test did not work, and that's perhaps reflected here.

PROGRESS FROM 2016 SPANISH GP

Progress compared to the grand prix week qualifying in Barcelona in 2016, adjusting the 2016 times by the same margin to all be on super-softs, we have the following:

1 Renault 4.410s
2 Ferrari 4.079s
3 Williams 3.502s
4 Haas 3.376s
5 Sauber 3.232s
6 Toro Rosso 3.206s
7 Force India 3.066s
8 Red Bull 2.842s
9 Mercedes 2.290s
10 McLaren 2.033s

Make of that what you will, but it does look that in general the smaller teams have not done a bad job with the new regulations.