Ferrari bounced back with aplomb in Bahrain, after being nowhere in Australia, the Scuderia having found solutions to the problems that afflicted them at Albert Park before arriving in the desert. On Friday at Sakhir, they opted to run more powerful engine modes to evaluate their findings. The test proved a success and they were able to deploy them to devastating effect in qualifying. Victory – and a one-two – appeared to be an inevitability.
However, things went completely wrong for the Maranello team in the race, as the Italian side will now be looking to bounce back at the Shanghai International Circuit. In China, the conditions are cooler and the roughness of the asphalt is quite low. If your car works the fronts better, you’re in the box seat. There is some evidence to suggest Mercedes are looking after their rears, which creates an understeer balance – and that would potentially swing the advantage into Ferrari’s favour in Shanghai. This will have a smaller impact in qualifying, but will likely have more influence in the race. We’re talking about very small margins, though, and it’s set to be very, very close between the championship’s two main protagonists.
Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel previews the next round of the 2019 Formula One season:
“The Chinese GP has been on the calendar for quite a while and it’s held on one of the most technical and difficult tracks of the year. Two of the corners are especially important: the first one and the one leading to the very long straight, over a kilometre in length. They’re both very technical and it’s difficult to find the right line because the track there is also very wide. They are challenging, not only in qualifying when you need to do just one lap, but also in the race. Looking after tyres is one of the key points in Shanghai, it’s the most important job to do on Sunday in order to be fast for the whole race. In the past I’ve had some good races here with Ferrari, coming very close to winning. Maybe this time we’ll get that little bit of luck, so that we can really celebrate the 1000th Formula 1 race.”
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