Arguably there are only two teams that can be outright displeased with their showing in Australia. With Williams expected to struggle after a mountain of pre-season problems, Ferrari should be the unhappiest team of the lot. True, they were not the ones proclaiming their likely 2019 dominance but the margin to Mercedes in qualifying and the race was worryingly large.
On average last year their raw pace rating (calculated by taking their fastest lap as a percentage of the overall fastest lap of the weekend, the lower the better) was 100.254, here it was back at 100.875. This rating is not definitive, but it is a fair guide. The positive from this is that is almost exactly where they began last season and by the second race of the year they were ahead of Mercedes. But that is a small consolation: they were nowhere in the race in Melbourne and finishing with neither car on the podium is poor.
The first race of the season usually is interesting from the technical point of view because most of the teams bring new parts to outline the definitive layout of their cars after pre-season testing. This year the tradition was respected, as many teams brought the latest refinements for their cars in Melbourne, among them Mercedes and Ferrari. Even though they didn’t bring visually striking changes to their respective cars, the latest specs were done in a very clever and interesting way.
As aforesaid, Ferrari was active in terms of the development of the SF90, even though in a less visually striking way. It was interesting to note that the floor adopted was halfway the one briefly tested in Barcelona. Halfway because even though the main elements in terms of longitudinal slits were exactly the same, it didn’t sport the three vertical winglets, that in Spain were placed in front of the rear wheels. Their removal was not due to their definitive discard, instead it was chosen not to feature them due to the high rate of marbles and debris that is present at a non-permanent track such as Albert Park, they could pick up some mess and generate block the aerodynamics in the area close to the diffuser side sections.
Another interesting change seen on the red cars, was related to the front brake drums. These were asymmetrical. The right hand one, featured two parallel slits to convey the hot air flow generated under braking in an efficient way, both in the innermost section of the wheel, and to its outermost section too.
On the left hand side, the drum featured a deep, wide and twisty channel, to provide the same effect as those of the hollowed wheel hubs now forbidden by the rules. The hot air, in fact, is directed outwardly at high pressure, so to divert the turbulence generated by the front wheels.
Albert Park is an unusual track (and it is no Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where all winter testing takes place) so now is not the time to panic, but Scuderia Ferrari need to find out what went wrong and soon.
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