Ferrari were ambushed by Mercedes in qualifying for the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, the first round of their 21-race battle for supremacy this year, and after Saturday afternoon in Melbourne, it would be fair to say that the Reds have already taken a hefty one to the chin.
The F1 world knows well how Mercedes tend to downplay their chances, create some 'fake' drama ahead of the season, then arrive at the track and pulverise their rivals.
Well, today it was 'Groundhog Day' at Albert Park as once again, out of the box, the World Champions have a beast of a car for their drivers, leaving their rivals dazed and confused.
Sebastian Vettel said as much after watching Hamilton dominate practice on Friday, his fears were realised when the chips were down, with Party Mode cranked up and the reigning World Champion in the zone, Ferrari are 0.7 of a second shy of the Silver Arrows in qualy trim.
That is a huge deficit, but again not unlike last year, however, the issue is that while Mercedes claimed they are in trouble ahead of the new season it is, in fact, their rivals from Maranello who have fallen short at the start of what is going to be a gruelling season.
When Charles Leclerc topped the timing screens in Q1 there was cause for optimism that the 21-year-old might cause an upset on his debut in Red but, by his own admission, he made mistakes when it came to crunch time which compromised his best efforts.
Ferrari report from Melbourne qualifying:
Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc will start the Australian Grand Prix from the second and third row of the grid respectively. It was not the easiest of sessions for the Scuderia and it ended with Sebastian third fastest and Charles fifth.
- Q1. In the first part of qualifying, Vettel was the only driver to go through to the next part on Medium tyres in a time of 1:22.885. Leclerc did a 1:23.326 which led him to go for a set of Softs, producing a 1:22.217 to easily get through to the next part.
- Q2. Only Softs were used and Sebastian posted a 1:21.912 and Charles a 1:21.739 which saw them comfortably make it to the final ten minutes to decide the top ten places on the grid.
- Q3. In the final shoot-out, Sebastian soon posted a lap in 1:21.250, good enough for third place. The German managed to improve on his second run, getting down to 1.21:190. On his first run, Charles did a 1:21.442, which would be his best time, as the number 16 driver made a mistake at the wheel of his SF90 on his second run and had to settle for fifth on the grid.
Sebastian Vettel, 3rd: “Starting tomorrow’s race from third is not too bad and the car is ok, even if it’s not exactly how we would like it and we are not as fast as we wanted to be. But we’ll start from there and see what we can bring home."
"This track is unique and conditions are different to what we experienced in testing. We have definitely improved the car overnight, but obviously not enough to be in front of everyone."
"In tomorrow’s race we’ll have time to understand the car further. We will race as hard as we can and see where that takes us. After all, we are just 16 metres behind pole position”.
Charles Leclerc, 5th: “I can’t say I’m happy with this qualifying result. After a good Q1 and a very good Q2, in Q3, especially on my second run, I made a few too many mistakes, especially in the first sector and I was unable to improve."
"I will try to learn from this and to prepare as well as possible for the race. As for the gap to our main competitors, I have to admit that maybe we had expected it to be smaller, even if this is an unusual track which often throws up a different order to what we can see on a more traditional track."
"On our side, I think there is still room to work on the car and the race is tomorrow and will be pretty long, so I am still aiming for a podium. I will definitely have to get a perfect start, because overtaking is far from easy here.”
Mattia Binotto, Team Principal: “We can’t say this was the result we were expecting, but we are well aware that Albert Park is not an ideal track for us, as its characteristics do not suit our car that well. Of course, we must improve, but we have gathered a great deal of information to identify the areas on which we must work."
"As usual, Seb showed that he knows how to use every centimetre of the track and Charles got through his first real test, a few little errors notwithstanding. Ahead of us, we have another 20 qualifying sessions and 21 races, so it’s a long game and we’re ready to play it."
Big Question: What now Ferrari?
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