Other than Williams, Ferrari's had to be of the most low-key unveilings of 2017, indeed it was one of the quietest in living memory.

A brief video, a handful of branded pictures and that was it... no fanfare, no promises.

It was almost as if Ferrari (and Williams?) were embarrassed, aware that they were 'launching' a car destined to failure, a car doomed to see the respective team slip further down the order.

Yet after two days of testing, and taking everything on board in terms of fuel loads, the irrelevance of times, Mercedes sandbagging and all that, the SF70H is looking good.

On Monday, Sebastian Vettel was within 0.113s of Lewis Hamilton's best, without switching to the soft rubber. Indeed, the Maranello outfit made a point of not running the yellow-banded tyres.

Then, yesterday, Kimi Raikkonen topped the timesheets, out-pacing Hamilton by 0.023, and while this time was set on the soft tyres, the Italian team only made the switch once Mercedes had gone to supersofts.

Not just that, the SF70H looks good, and while it hadn’t completed a full race simulation yet – unlike the Mercedes – its certainly looks as though it handles better, both Vettel and Raikkonen appearing more confident in the car.

And then there's reliability, thus far the SF70H has completed 236 laps without missing a beat, compared to Mercedes 320 laps.

Early days, granted, but things are looking decidedly good for the Maranello outfit at this time.

In previous years, the Italian team would have been crowing the results from the rooftops, but throughout Ferrari has maintained almost total radio silence.

No demands for so many wins this season, no wild predictions; merely Sergio Marchionne admitting that he doesn't know if the team can win the championship.

Clearly learning a lesson from the past, rather than issuing reams of false promises giving false hope, the Italian team is concentrating its efforts where they matter most... on track.

And the sport is all the better for it.

Check out our Wednesday gallery from Barcelona, here.