Daniel Ricardo believes Red Bull will be the "main contender" for the 2018 F1 World Championship, although he thinks RB14 is "not the fastest car" at the moment.
Ricardo Hypersoft tires with this season's most soft recipe to make third fastest lap time in pre-season testing, with ferrari driver Sebastian vettel to brush the tyre's fastest lap broke Catalan track record is almost a second time.
However, defending champion Mercedes not during pre-season testing using the soft tyres, a recipe but only soft Ultrasoft, therefore W09 real lap speed are not show, although a new generation of "silver arrow" racing simulation speed of the game is still considered obvious advantages.
However, Mercedes, director of toto Woolf saw red bull as "real a threat", while lewis Hamilton said RB14 in Barcelona's performance is better than ferrari SF71H let him forget.
"I don't think we are the fastest, so I think our lap time also need to progress, but I really believe we are the main competitors," ricardo in pre-season testing after the said "we, or at least in the ranks of almost close to that position."
Although the 2017 season is finally in third place, red bulls are gaining momentum in the second half of the season, especially as Max vestapan has scored two victories in the final stages.
In the pre-season test last year, red bulls wasted important track times due to poor reliability, leading to a slow start to the season.
In both tests, the red bull was delayed by some mechanical problems, but ricardo believes the team is in better shape than it was a year ago.
"Sometimes we have a lot of speed in the test, but when you see someone else, you think they are strong. "I think we look good now," he said.
"I don't think we are the fastest race car, we have a little bit of digging, but I think we have the opportunity to join the fray. As far as our performance is concerned, this winter is better than last year. We ran a lot of circles, so we felt much better than we did 12 months ago.
Red bull racing advisor helmut marko openly said in an interview before the season, he believes that ricardo and vesta pan currently unable to rider world champion, but he was sure of two equal driver ate each other, thus the maximum energy out of the car.
Expiring contract, however, ricardo has yet to start negotiations with the red bulls, because he wanted to watch their team at the beginning of the season, Mercedes and ferrari state, considering the vermillion cauldron has potential drivers seat 2019 season. The Australian says he understands that this kind of wait has both advantages and disadvantages, but as long as he does his best, he can lead his own destiny, which will be related to his world championship dream.
When asked whether you want to start to the season phase has a number of winners to let him with it, ricardo replied: "yes, it is ideal for me, especially I want to challenge Mercedes in Melbourne, where he was trying to get good grades."
"Obviously we're going to try and have a very high goal, but it looks like if we can't, ferrari can challenge Mercedes at this stage. I think we're still pretty close. But if they can take away some points, then we have a chance. I am looking forward to a fight. I hope the gap will not be too big this year. It will look like a big fight."