The 2018 Australian Grand Prix showed that Scuderia Ferrari Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen is happy with the SF71H, which suits his driving style and the 2007 Formula One world champions can now hope to challenge Mercedes, as the Maranello team look to fight for the F1 Constructor Standings.
Three talking points for this weekend’s race.
Can Kimi assert himself at Ferrari?
Kimi Raikkonen out-qualified his team-mate Sebastian Vettel in Melbourne and probably would have finished in front of him if it hadn’t been for the Virtual Safety Car. Sebastian admitted that for the moment he did not get as much out of the car as he would have wanted, with the Finnisg driver looking more at ease with the SF71H’s handling. How long can Raikkonen sustain this advantage? If he is ahead again, he could be well-placed to end his five-year victory drought. Mercedes have been strong here in the past and took pole position for all of the last five Bahrain Grands Prix, but Scuderia Ferrari turned the tables on them in the race last year and will now be looking for a similar outcome on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton believes the red cars’ straight-line speed will make them a threat this weekend. Mercedes ran closer to the limit of cooling in Australia and in the heat of Bahrain may be forced to make bigger concessions to look after their power units.Kimi Raikkonen gives little away out of the car but his anxiousness to convert his early-season advantage over Sebastian was clear from a mid-race radio message punctuated with expletives in which he complained the team hadn’t kept him briefed on Vettel’s pace.
Liberty Media’s big plans
The big off-track story this weekend looks set to be Ross Brawn’s briefing to the teams on Friday, at which he will present his vision for the sport in 2021. The future of the sport potentially hangs on how Ross Brawn proposes to address F1’s myriad challenges. The top teams are already threatening to quit F1 after 2020, if Liberty Media presses ahead with plans for a budget cap and significantly altered engine rules.
The remaining unknowns heading to race two – Can Ferrari and Red Bull legitimately challenge Mercedes?
Despite Ferrari winning in Australia and Red Bull claiming the fastest lap, it’s still difficult to predict just how close the two teams are to challenging Mercedes across 21 races in 2018. A closely-matched start to the weekend was followed by the deflating moment in Q3 when Lewis Hamilton set a pole position lap more than 0.6s faster than second-placed Kimi Raikkonen — like getting a “a pie in the face”, to quote Daniel Ricciardo. The questions which remain about the Mercedes’ ‘party mode’ (see below) which helped Hamilton complete that lap muddy the waters here.
The final stages of the opening grand prix suggested Ferrari and Red Bull can match Mercedes’ pace in race trim, although Hamilton’s inability to catch and pass Sebastian Vettel was also complicated by the fact overtaking opportunites come at a premium at Albert Park, prompting the world champions to turn its engines down in the final laps. However, that same factor probably prevented Ricciardo from showing the true pace of the Red Bull RB14.
The freak nature of Ferrari’s win at Albert Park also meant most of the focus after the race was on the fortuitous victory and not the performance of the red car. Hamilton was not fooled, pointing out after the race that he had been unable to pull a significant gap to Raikkonen in the opening stint, adding: “I think their performance is better than it looked”. Ferrari now heads to a Bahrain circuit which should suit its strengths. If the team stays competitive in Sakhir, it will prove Hamilton’s fears were well-founded.
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