Putting in a dominant display in Saturday qualifying for the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes made it clear that they are the team to beat here in Melbourne.
Twenty-four hours on from an explosion of pace that seemed too good to be true for Mercedes, Saturday proved it was anything but.
Lewis Hamilton on pole with a 1:20.486, Valtteri Bottas a 1:20.598, and then… daylight. Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari, for all their preseason promise, were 0.592 seconds back, and all the good vibes built up over a strong preseason campaign fading rapidly.
Of course, testing has never been so enlightening as to give us all the pieces to the F1 puzzle, but it’s at least supposed to give us the corners from which we can build upon. Clearly, that hasn’t happened here, as – at least as far as one-lap pace is concerned – the question we should’ve been asking all along was not “how close” Mercedes and Ferrari are, but whether the latter had ever truly caught up.
Now obviously, it’s not like Ferrari should call it a season – hell, we haven’t even
raced yet, nor is this the first time Hamilton has laid down an untouchable stonker in Melbourne, but there is undeniably cause for legitimate concern.
Bottas being similarly far ahead suggests the pace of the W10 is for real (either that, or his new evil beard has heightened his powers), and indeed Vettel himself, despite the air of calm he tried to project in the press conference, admitted that “we should be better than this” – not the words of a man unconcerned by his predicament.
Quick Hits
- Interesting to watch Vettel’s expressions in the presser whilst Hamilton defended his earlier declarations that Ferrari was faster. The German seriously struggled to keep a straight face, either because he knew this was “bullshit” all along, or his terrible moustache was itching.
- Their title sponsor may be imaginary, but Haas’ pace is very much real. P6 and 7, I’m sure they’ll take that any day of the week – now they just have to avoid ballsing it up on Sunday.
- Great start to the Nico Hulkenberg-Daniel Ricciardo battle at Renault, only 0.008s separating them on Saturday. If Ricciardo did run from a fight, he might have just run smack bang into another one.
Sunday Race Strategy Preview, Courtesy of Pirelli
In theory, the quickest strategy for the 58-lap Australian Grand Prix is actually a two stopper: two stints on the soft tyre of 21 laps each, followed by a shorter 16-lap final stint on the medium.
In practice, the teams are more likely to adopt a one-stopper, which is extremely close in terms of overall time anyway and carries less risk, especially as Albert Park is not so easy to overtake on. The optimal one-stop strategy (from the information we have so far) is to start on the soft tyre for 27 laps, then run 31 laps on the medium tyre to the end.
Very close to that is an alternative one stopper: start on the soft tyre for 24 laps, then go for 34 laps on the hard to the flag.
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