We’re only one race into the F1 2019 season and Ferrari are already facing a critical weekend at the Bahrain GP.
If the Scuderia can right the wrongs of Melbourne and prove their poor form was a one-off, the pre-season confidence will be restored and they are arguably back in the title fight again. But should Mercedes win, there will already be serious cause for concern at Maranello.
Get ready for the duel in the desert. It could be a defining race.
What went wrong in Australia?
Even when considering Mercedes’ most optimistic estimations heading into the season-opener, they were just behind a Ferrari team that flew out of the blocks with a near-flawless winter testing. The end result in Australia? A seven-tenths advantage for the Silver Arrows in qualifying, and a second-a-lap buffer come Sunday. Nobody was expecting that.
Were Mercedes so strong, or Ferrari so weak?
What was most surprising was just how many problems Ferrari ran into with their smooth and seemingly well-rounded SF90.
The team were losing time through the low, medium and high-speed corners to their rivals (ranking sixth on the grid through the medium-speed), and perhaps more worryingly, both Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc finished in the bottom four of the speed traps. In fact, all four at the bottom of that list were Ferrari-powered cars.
“The car looked comfortable but slow, whereas the Mercedes looked edgy but fast,” noted Sky F1’s Martin Brundle.
There are theories that Ferrari had power unit issues in Melbourne, and that the team were turning the engine down after encountering a few issues in the second week of testing. Team boss Mattia Binotto, however, put the deficits – through corners and on the straights – down to an overall lack of balance, pointing to a wrong setup on Ferrari’s behalf.
“Of course we will analyse everything including the comparison with the cars of the other teams,” he said. “But in general we lacked the balance, and this, of course, affects the speed at the exit of the corners.”
Wolff, meanwhile, added: “It’s difficult to find the right setup for these new cars. Ferrari definitely took a wrong turn but there is no fundamental problem.”
Why are Ferrari expected to bounce back?
There’s a reason Ferrari were such heavy favourites following the two weeks in Barcelona.
On a track which features all types of different corners and easily highlights the strengths, and weaknesses, of a teams’ aerodynamic package, Ferrari appeared all-but-faultless, 20 seconds ahead of Mercedes on race pace and only matched over one lap in the dying embers of testing.
And Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit – which was also considered for the pre-season tests for the same reasons as Barcelona – is a much-more comparable reference than Australia’s curious and quirky Albert Park, where Ferrari have often struggled.
Don’t forget: last year Lewis Hamilton took pole by seven tenths and should have easily won the race in Australia, but the Ferraris locked out the front row in Bahrain and dominated the opening races of the season.
It would also be shocking to see Ferrari make the same mistakes again in terms of their setup.
“One thing for certain is that [Australia] is not the real potential of our car,” explained Binotto. “In Bahrain, we expect to see the effect of corrections we have made.”
Vettel continued: “I’m sure we will find something because we know the car is better than what we’ve seen.”
It’s not time to panic yet at Ferrari, but no team had a more surprising and disappointing weekend in Australia – and no team needs a strong weekend more than the Scuderia in Bahrain. It’s crunch time.
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