No match in F1 for new Red Bull

The usually reserved Peter Sauber spoke on behalf of the entire F1 community this week when he admitted to seeing "no match" for Red Bull’s new RB7.

But Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport has published statistics showing that, based on recent pre-season testing, it is actually Ferrari with the best average lap time so far.

Red Bull is ranked just third, behind Mercedes, reinforcing the view that the reigning world champions are sandbagging.

McLaren is ranked behind Renault and Toro Rosso, and trailed by just over a tenth by Williams.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, fastest in Barcelona on Wednesday, is quoted by Spain’s AS newspaper: "We have done a lot of laps without encountering major reliability problems.

"As for the speed, it seems fairly good, but I think we will have to wait until Melbourne or Malaysia or even China to really see where we are."

Apparently pressed that the RB7 is clearly a winning car, the German is quoted by Autosprint as responding: "How can you say that when it has not done a race?"

The Italian report claims that, over a single lap, the Red Bull is about six tenths clear of the nearest chasing car, Ferrari’s 150 Italia.