Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly have both declared Ferrari’s engine as the current benchmark on the Formula 1 grid.
It has been generally accepted that the Italian team has overtaken Mercedes in the power rankings but it has been the chassis performance of the German manufacturer which has kept them ahead.
And this was proven by Sainz’s analysis of McLaren’s Renault power unit, which some claim has now fallen behind Honda as the slowest.
“I think Renault has done progress, definitely, in terms of power you see at every track this year we are a lot closer to the top,” he told Motorsport Week.
“There is still one engine for me which is excelling which is the Ferrari engine in quali mode which is still a good step ahead.
“But Renault has made progress and on the power side, the engine [introduced in Spain] is supposed to bring progress in reliability which is where we are at the weakest so hopefully we will keep moving forward and they will keep bringing steps.
“But compared to last year we definitely have more power.”
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Gasly also then made the same point when comparing Honda to their rivals.
“At the moment, Ferrari clearly stands out in terms of straight-line speed. The one we need to target, Mercedes, is sort of more or less in the middle,” he was quoted by GPFans.com.
“Performance-wise we have quite a lot more than we had last year. On reliability, things run pretty smoothly since the beginning of the season for us, so everything is improved.
“For sure, there’s still quite a step especially compared to Ferrari that are clearly the fastest down the straight, but we know they keep pushing and more performance will come also from the engine.”