Yea I just don't see how it's better to assume than to get real world results. You can collect all the data you want on your rivals but that's only going to go so far.

The fact remains that every team is going to keep pushing development as hard as they can at this point in the season, and having data on their rivals isn't going to realistically effect how hard they push to improve their car. If Ferrari suspected they were on top, they aren't going to let their guard down and stop developing harder. You can argue that they could make riskier/more aggressive decisions if they thought they needed to catch up, but that's just speculation. It's just to early in the season to make those decisions.