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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says he is expecting to see instant results from corrections it has made after a difficult weekend in Australia.
The Scuderia outfit failed to make it onto the podium at the opening race of the year, and was seven-tenths off the pace in qualifying, with Mercedes springing to the top.
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The result came as a surprise to some, as it looked to be the strongest team at the conclusion of pre-season testing.
Ferrari remained certain that it would bounce back from the underwhelming performance, and Binotto says that changes should be seen this weekend in Bahrain.
"The Bahrain Grand Prix is the second round of what will be a very long and demanding season,” Binotto said.
“The Sakhir circuit has very different characteristics to the Australian one, with traction and braking being key factors.
“As a team, we will have to ensure that we have understood and rectified the areas where we were weak in Australia, which therefore meant we were unable to fully exploit our car’s potential.
“In Bahrain, we expect to see the effect of the corrections we have made, although we are well aware that our competitors will once again be very strong. With that in mind, we are keen to get back on track and face up to them.”
Speaking in Melbourne, Sebastian Vettel described how the start of the year has been a mirror opposite for Ferrari.
“I think we have all the tools, all the ingredients that we need,” said Vettel. “We have a good car, we know it.
"This weekend we didn’t, overall we’re not competitive enough, but we will be back. Last year we left winter testing with problems on the car.
"It wasn’t behaving the way we wanted it, the way it should. This year was the opposite, the car was behaving the way we expected and it felt very good."
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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C. Leclerc
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Replies (7)
Login to replyajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I expect that Ferrari will be better than in Australia, but still behind. I predict more team orders, and Max splitting the Ferraris.
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
It would be fun, if he could split them instead of passing. I for one, want to see a fight between Lewis, Max, Leclerc.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I'd prefer Bottas vs Max vs Leclerc, but anything mixed up there is good. But at this rate, I agree with AJPP in that Ferrari (and Red Bull) are probably behind.
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
Worrying phenomenon is, loss of real world correlation due to changes. This happened in 2018 and now. Ferrari needs to make some management changes here.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
They need to just let their car do the talking. Unfortunately with the Italian press they need to constantly be defending themselves so they have to say something. Better to say nothing and exceed expectations than create high expectations and not meet them. Looks like their on their way to another year of getting in their own way on race weekends.
abhidbgt
Posts: 283
True that. Better to say nothing and exceed expectations.
boudy
Posts: 1,168
There was report on why Ferrari were so much behind and according this analysis it was twofold A) the tyres falling away quicker than their competitors. B) the interaction between the turbo and the harvesting had issues resulting in a higher than expected fuel usage (similar that Honda had in 2018) and that's why Vettel was running in a different engine mode.
With an completely different track and different corner types we would see different results on the tyres issue, however the issue between harvesting and PU might be an bigger issue to solve.
I believe that the RBR will be much more competitive on Bahrain circuit