F1:Chevrier: Ferrari are ahead, for now

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Renault's chief track engineer Denis Chevrier concedes that Ferrari appear to have a performance advantage heading into the season, but thinks it will take three races for the true picture of how fast teams are to emerge.

Just 24 hours after Giancarlo Fisichella claimed that Renault were half a second behind Ferrari and McLaren, and 'struggling' for pace, Chevrier has said he is more bullish about the situation.

He thinks that it is always difficult to gauge a true understanding of where teams stand solely based on testing times, and he is confident that his team are in the fight at the front of the field.

"Each year there are always the winter testing champions who then have problems capitalising on this during the season," he said in an interview on Renault's team website. "It's very difficult to make any kind of prediction, as not until after the first three grands prix will we be able to see how things stand and give a pertinent analysis.

"But we're not expecting any major upsets, the "historical" three top teams will still be at the front. Ferrari seems particularly sharp and has maybe a slight advantage performance wise over the others. BMW looks like the main challenger, but let's wait and see."

Although Renault are clearly not expecting the kind of dominant start to the campaign that they enjoyed the past two seasons, Chevrier claims that morale is high at their two factories.

"Both at Viry and Enstone you can feel huge motivation and a very good dynamic even though everybody realises that it's going to be a tough season," he said. "We're fully aware that we'll have to fight very hard right from the start and not let a single point slip through our fingers."

Autosport