Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg has admitted that the team will likely be slower than Red Bull this season despite the four-time world champions switching to Honda power.
The German driver set the fastest time of testing so far on the final day of week one. The 1:17.393 he set may have been the fastest of all but he set the time on the softest Pirelli compound, the C5 tyre.
After testing, he was honest about where the team feels it currently is in the F1 food chain and added the team was expecting to be behind Red Bull once again this year.
"We know where Red Bull is faster, but we would like to know why," he said.
"I honestly am not bothered with that. First of all we have to go through our programme and optimise our car.
"It is very closely balanced. We are by no means comfortably fourth."
Despite his reservations about the pecking order, Hulkenberg added that he was pleased with the direction the team had chosen to go with the R.S.19.
"I feel good about the car. We have managed to recover the downforce that we should actually have lost with the new rules.
"The car actually feels like last year. Like someone pressed the copy-paste button."
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