Mercedes believes Red Bull currently has the fastest car with the start of the new Formula 1 season just around the ꦜcorner.

While it is still unclear how competitive M🍬ercedes truly is, Red Bull’s improvement over the winter break was very apparent across the three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

The RB16B looked assured and well 🍎balanced on track, w♒hile the Mercedes W12 looked to be a handful, highlighted by Lewis Hamilton's two spins on the final two days of testing.

Speaking in a video released by Mercedes, strategy director🌱 James Vowles thinks Red Bull is simply ahead of Mercedes in terms of performance.

"There are a lot of unknowns," Vowles sa⛎id. "No-one up and down the paddock can pinpoint exactly where they are.

"But there are a few trends that have come out. I'd say🍌✃ Red Bull are ahead on performance. They are the class act."

Mercedes has yet to be take✃n to the wire by any other team since the start of the hybrid eﷺra, but Vowles believes F1 is in store for a “close season”.

"Are we going to have a close season? I would say so,"🍎 Vowles added. "Red Bull are a fierce adversary, they've got a strong package and clearly came out of the box very, very quick.

"The result of that is across the season and across♕ different types of track layouts, I am sure you will see us move forwards and backwards relative to them, but I don't believe we are going into this particularly finding all the performance that is missing or being ahead of them."