Motorsport Italy analyzes the causes which led to Scuderia Ferrari’s unexpected struggles in the first race of the 2019 Formula One season. Here is a summary of why the Maranello team’s SF90 wasn’t competitive in Australia, according to Motorsport Italy:
– the SF90 is too sensitive on bumpy tracks (it seems that this could be a result of the fact that the front suspension is more conservative) and setup was completely wrong.
– the whole packaging was too “closed” for the Albert Park circuit, so the Italian side had to reduce power to not cause any damage to the new engine.
– the SF90 had the best behviour when it still had the full tank, but then it didn’t know how to get off its times even though the car was getting lighter for fuel consumption, a sign that on the SF90 there was some serious problem to investigate.
– without wishing to take into consideration the maximum speed at Pierre Gasly’s speed trap with Red Bull that for a long period of time was behind Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso (the Frenchman at Albert Park touched 321.9 km / h!), it can be interesting to compare the speed of Valtteri Bottas (who made a solitary race) to that of Sebastian Vettel. The silver arrow reached 311.4 km / h, while the German’s Ferrari did not exceed 303.7 km / h. Charles Leclerc, probably more aerodynamically loaded, stopped at 297.4 km / h. In short, the deficit of 7.7 km / h for Sebastian Vettel at the speed trap should make the Italian side reflect. Mattia Binotto, speaking with journalists in the post-GP press conference, said that “we did not find the grip we expected and when you are in these conditions you find it hard to turn, and you don’t go out as you should on the straights”.
– the Maranello team had already understood in free practice that Ferrari would have to race a weekend in defensive mode. The mistakes were made at home and there was no way or time to repair them on the track before the race. The lesson was served and in Bahrain the SF90 should return to be that of Barcelona.
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