On day four of the opening pre-season test of the year, Ferrari climbed on top yet again with Kimi Raikkonen putting down a time of 1m 23.477s.

While this was the quickest time of the session, it didn’t quite match Sebastian Vettel’s flying lap from Day 2, when he managed a time of 1m 22.810s on his first run with Pirelli’s new ultrasoft compound tires.

It’s hard to properly asses how fast a Formula 1 car is during pre-season testing, especially if you’re on the outside looking in. They’re hardly ever trying to set fast laps and you never know when they’re actually holding back on purpose.

However, you do get a sense of reliability and which teams are struggling to stay consistent, which is something that heavily plagued McLaren last year. So far, it seems that no one has had any reliability issues, which is a good sign – it indicates that regardless of how fast the cars are between them, there won’t be any team in particular that will exclude itself from “a fight” before the race even starts.

Another thing you can get a sense of, is how the cars look, aesthetically speaking. Here, everyone probably has their own opinion, but Ferrari’s and Red Bull’s liveries look particularly vibrant, don’t they?

Toro Rosso is still a question mark in this department, but we’re confident they’ll find a way to make those “red bull” logos look as spirited as possible. Then there are teams such as Mercedes, Williams, Sauber and Force India who chose not to do anything particularly different regarding their cars’ colors – a safe way to go.

As for Renault, are they really going to tolerate people mistaking them for the McLarens when their cars are out on the track? Maybe they should add some more yellow to that livery of theirs. A lot more.

So which teams do you guys favor?

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