Preseason testing tipped red-hot Ferrari as favourites at Albert Park, but the Italian Scuderia didn't live up to the hype and hysteria storm
Callum Alexander | Callum on Cars | CrackersCal
The 2019 Australian Grand Prix was supposed to have been The Ferrari Show.
The script was written: Ferrari were to have the fastest car around the Albert Park circuit. On Saturday, they would claim an emphatic front row lockout in qualifying and on the Sunday, convert that into a domineering display of sheer power and authority, crushing the competition with an utterly imperious and victorious one-two.
It would reinstate the supremacy of the Italian outfit back at the summit of F1, toppling the seismic force of Mercedes-Benz and their stranglehold on the Sport since 2014. It was a Grand Prix made for Ferrari; the race that idealistically would see their four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel stamp a statement of intent.
Yet, none of it came to pass. In a routine rout, the world champions steamrolled the grid, with flying fin Valtteri Bottas spearheading the Silver Arrows’ resurgence against the odds.
All evidence in pre-season testing indicated that Ferrari, on pure pace, were the team to beat heading into the season opening race weekend. But the entire Melbourne race weekend has turned that expectation on its head. The Scarlet Red cars even finished behind the Honda powered Red Bull of Max Verstappen.
Vettel finished fourth, 57 seconds behind race winner Bottas; the German seemingly stumped by the gaping gulf in performance: “Why are we so slow?” he said over team radio – they said they had no idea. His debuting team mate Charles Leclerc closely flanked Vettel in fifth.
But it wasn’t plain sailing for Mercedes’ star-studded 5 Time Champion either. Lewis Hamilton’s pace quickly dissipated, leaving him 20 seconds behind his teammate at the chequered flag. Winner of 73 Grand Prix’s, Hamilton is not often knocked off his commanding pedestal. When asked about where his speed had gone, he said: “I do have some ideas.”
While the others where left searching, Bottas sealed his stellar performance with a message: “to whom it may concern” over the radio during the in-lap. The 29-year old said that the people he was referencing would know who they were. The Finn also scored the fastest lap of the race, earning him the first solitary F1 point allocated for the accolade. With 21 available across the season, it could define the outcomes of the season.
On the surface, many would view Valtteri’s seat at the Brackley based team as one of the most desirable on the F1 grid, but that impression has a sticking point: you have Lewis Hamilton as your team mate. The Briton is widely regarded as the fastest driver of his generation – he has the most pole positions of any driver in history, with 84 – his status is secure as one of the greatest drivers of all time. In pitting yourself up against Hamilton, you are to risk your racing reputation.
This has proved to be the case thus far for Bottas in his Mercedes career. In 2017, he won three races to Hamilton’s nine. To his credit, Bottas should have had a couple of victories in 2018.
At the Azerbaijan race in Baku, when leading a chaotic race, in the final laps he ran over debris on track that punctured his right rear tyre, forcing him to retire from the race. And in Russia, Bottas was the faster Mercedes during the Sochi race weekend, but in round 16 out of 21, by that stage he was out of title contention. Toto Wolff therefore forced the Finn to hand victory to Hamilton.
It meant that in 2018, Bottas failed to record a single race victory - he finished in second place seven times. For direct reference, Hamilton blitzed the field, winning eleven races on route to his 2018 Drivers World Title.
The backdrop to Bottas’ revival could hardly be put into starker context with the arrival of the highly rated Esteban Ocon. He will be the reserve driver for Mercedes during the 2019 season, but should Bottas fail to deliver – Ocon is in the ideal position to pounce at any opportunity presented his way.
Hamilton is a one lap specialist, and that trend continued from the outset at Albert Park. The 34-year old claimed the headlines, topping all three Practice sessions, but Bottas was never far behind.
This was highlighted in the top 10 qualifying shoot-out: he was 0.5 seconds faster on his first flying lap, but Hamilton delved deep on his second run and produced a lap that exemplifies his unique talent to claim pole position. Bottas lined up second, but his time just 0.1 seconds slower, small enough to apply pressure to Hamilton.
Ferrari weren’t even close. Vettel took third but was almost 0.8 seconds behind the pole lap; Leclerc made a mistake that meant he had to settle for fifth, allowing Verstappen to clinch fourth.
But the race isn’t won on Saturday. Hamilton had a bad start, Bottas had a good one and he led into turn 1 - the Silver Arrows didn’t change position again.
"Every year you learn as a person, about yourself, what works for you and what doesn't," Bottas said.
"It is quite difficult to explain what has been going on last winter inside my head but something changed about how I feel about things and life in general."
His Team Principal Toto Wolf liked what he saw: "How he recovered from being written off, not up for the job in the second half of the season last year, scoring one of the most dominant victories in recent days, just shows us human potential and how much it is a mind game.”
"It is for me also a bit of fairytale - don't let others break you, believe in yourself. And he has just showed us the whole weekend."
Without doubt, Bottas drove a great race, but there is a small caveat revealing the cause of the gulf in gap to Hamilton at the end when they crossed the line.
The World Champion tracked his teammate at just over a second, until lap four. His three-pointed star was inflicted with floor damage and lost rear downforce as a result. For the remainder of the race, he struggled with the balance of the car – he said he did not know why, as he had not run wide anywhere.
His early pit stop magnified his deficit further: to cover Vettel, it meant he had a much longer second stint to the flag. All of these external implications effectively ended Hamilton’s chances of victory.
"With the super-early stop, I knew from then the race was done. I knew I was going to be in trouble on the long run so I drove well off the pace to make sure at the end of the race I still had life left in the tyres."
The question is: can Bottas build a championship campaign consistently over the entire season to challenge Hamilton. As he races unfold, the reality will be revealed. He has taken maximum points in Australia to help his quest to prove it.
It proved to be a miserable weekend for home favourite Daniel Ricciardo. In the debut race with his new team, a positive start in front of his adoring home crowd would have made an encouraging springboard for Riccardo ascend from.
It turned out to be the opposite - Renault didn’t make Q3 in Qualifying on Saturday. His weekend was frustrated further with teammate Nico Hulkenburg producing a faster lap in Q2, by just eight thousandths of a second. It meant Ricciardo lined up twelfth on the grid, behind his teammate Hulkenburg in eleventh.
Ricciardo’s race was over almost before it even started. He made a better start than Sergio Perez in front with the Mexican narrowing the inside line in front of Ricciardo, who gave the Racing Point driver a generous amount of room as he was overtaking.
This forced the fast charging Renault’s right side partially onto the grass, which caught and broke his front wing off. He pitted for a new wing and tyres; after that he limped around in second to last, until on lap 31, when the 29-year old’s Renault was retired due to a mechanical problem.
“I’m just drained,” Ricciardo said. “I try to please everyone this week and I don’t look after myself so we’ll change it for next year.”
“For sure I’m frustrated because everyone expects so much … when the race is over in five seconds, I feel preparation is not as it should be.”
The biggest surprise was that Ferrari were floundering the whole weekend. The pace simply wasn’t to the expected level seen in preseason testing; it left a discombobulated picture in terms of the performance pecking order.
Vettel made a good start and maintained his third place but Leclerc, eager to make up for his mistake in qualifying, braked later and almost clipped his teammate trying to pass into turn 1. In his first race for Ferrari, the 21-year old avoided contact and was forced to drive onto the astro turf grass beyond the kerb.
Vettel made the early pit stop, but then slowed down to protect the tyres for the duration of the race. That allowed Red Bull to mix things up as Max Verstappen took the final podium position; he even caught up to the back of Hamilton, but could not find a way past.
Leclerc then closed on Vettel, but was instructed not to overtake – Ferrari did not want to risk the points haul in the first race of the season.
Vettel was unsure why the cars potential wasn’t accessed: "All weekend, I didn't get that confidence and I did not have the car underneath to play around. It wasn't doing what I was asking. There were glimpses here and there that were really strong. The performance in some corners was really good. But in the majority of corners it wasn't.
"Clearly we are missing something. Right now, we don't have an answer. But I am sure we will find something because we know the car is better than what we have seen.”
In all likely hood, Ferrari simply didn’t get their car into the correct operating window in Melbourne, around the Albert Park circuit; where the tyres, aerodynamics and set-up are all aligned for Vettel and Leclerc to extract the optimum performance from the car. It resulted in an underperformance from F1’s most successful and famous team - not for the first time in recent seasons gone by.
It has left F1 2019 hanging in the balance, as unpredictable as can be and with more questions than answers. For the sake of Ferrari and F1: they must respond in Bahrain – otherwise the season could merge into another Mercedes wipe-out.
Callum Alexander | Callum on Cars | CrackersCal
Photos: Racefans.net
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