Briatore: Ferrari apology book starts at the first race

The flamboyant Italian businessman did not mince his words during an interview on Radio Capital when he gave his Melbourne post-mortem after Ferrari laboured to fourth and fifth in the season opener last Sunday.

"Absolutely nothing has changed," insisted Briatore, "They had three months to prepare the cars but the gap was the same as the last few races [in 2018], Ferrari has not lost ground against Mercedes but has not made up any either."

"The Australian Grand Prix can be a bit abnormal, but if you're strong, you're strong everywhere. The apology book starts at the first race, it's very hard."

Defeating Mercedes since the advent of the new engine formula in 2014 has proved to be impossible. Their rivals simply have had no answer to the World Champions who have racked up ten titles in five years, betting against them making it a dozen come the end of this year would be foolish.

In the light of his experience taking Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso their world titles at Benetton and Renault respectively, the 68-year-old was asked how the Silver Arrows can be defeated.

He replied, "We need to take an important step that I don't think any team has taken. Mercedes have created their own program, doing it at their pace which no one has been able to match."

"To beat Mercedes you have to find eight or nine tenths. Until then they will continue to dominate. If the car is so strong, the only competition is internal, at home, between Hamilton and Bottas."

Briatore is well known for his disdain of the current formula which obliges drivers to manage tyres, run different conservation modes in a contest that is no longer about driving flat-out all the time.

His complaints persist, "The driver must work a bit with everything. They need to know the tyres, which has now become such an important variant that it's almost a tyre championship, rather than one for drivers."

"F1 has become so technological that during races people listen to commentators who talk about tyres, tyres, tyres, instead of talking about gladiators," lamented the former F1 team boss.