Fernando Alonso was pleased with his and Ferrari’s progress on Friday in Barcelona after he completed 102 trouble-free laps.
The Spaniard is certain their car, the F138, is far better than last years, but he admitted they are currently “not the quickest.”
“We now have a car that is responding well to what we change, and that is doing what we expect,” he said on Friday evening.
“We know we are maybe not the quickest yet, but the potential of the car is there.
“I think we are a little bit behind the top teams, which is where we expected to be,” he told Sky Sports F1. “In Brazil we were seven or eight tenths behind the Red Bull and McLarens and no one can recover that amount of time in a couple of months.”
Alonso is hopeful they can close the gap further in Australia when they will reveal their latest upgrades.
“Hopefully we will arrive a little bit closer than that in Melbourne,” he added. “The parts for Australia are not coming to this test so we will try them out on the Friday there.”
