How Ferrari missed the boat at the first race of the year in Australia

They were under scrutiny. The hype was high with Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Scuderia. Maybe too high? In any case, Ferrari left its fans wanting more during this first weekend of the F1 season in Australia. A disappointing qualifying session on Saturday, poor pace, and a strategic error during the race cost the Italian team their first Grand Prix. Are they going to give up already?

A complicated Qualifying Saturday

The clouds began to gather over the Scuderia on Saturday during the qualifying session. After promising winter tests and an encouraging first day of free practice, the Italian team hoped to fight for pole position. However, the SF-25 did not meet expectations, allowing McLaren to secure a one-two while Ferrari was relegated to the fourth row on the grid.

Frédéric Vasseur, director of Scuderia, did not hide his disappointment after the qualifying session. Ferrari conceded almost seven-tenths to McLaren, a gap that, according to him, does not accurately reflect the true potential of the SF-25. “In Q1 and Q2, we were close to McLaren. Our times were not spectacular, but we were in the mix. Then we lost pace in Q3, and it’s a shame,” he said.

Before adding, rightly so, that the season is not over; it’s just a qualifying session. There isn’t seven-tenths of a second between us and McLaren. It’s more like one to three-tenths, as in every session, except in Q3, where we missed something and lost the final lap. He was relying on the race to turn things around. Except that…

« Too many messages on the radio »

Sunday, Ferrari was being Ferrari again. And not the Ferrari of the great years. Untimely radio messages seemed to disturb both drivers. « Too much information for my taste », responded Charles Leclerc to his team, who mentioned a technical detail to him. He would repeat himself later in the race. This bitterly recalls last year’s episode of “Questions” and “Answers” on the radio with his engineer, who has since moved on to other opportunities. We also had a bizarre response from his engineer when the Monegasque driver complained, on lap 25, about having water all over his car, on his seat. He asked if there was a leak somewhere. The answer? « It’s water. » Water from the rain. We hadn’t thought of that…

The same sentiment is echoed by the freshly arrived Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes. He also complained about radio messages while he was visibly trying to keep his focus on the track. “Let me do it,” he repeatedly told his engineer. It is well understood that an adjustment period will be necessary for both the seven-time world champion Brit and the Scuderia to adapt to this change. Lewis Hamilton is the most experienced driver to have joined the Italian team in many years—probably since Sebastian Vettel, and we all know how that ended… He was used to everything flowing smoothly with his beloved engineer “Bono,” Peter Bonnington, who is now looking after the protégé Kimi Antonelli. Now, he must rely on his new engineer at Ferrari, Riccardo Adami. In short, let’s hope the new partnership quickly finds the right communication…

A fatal error in the Melbourne race

Obviously, if there were only communication problems, we wouldn’t make a big deal out of it (then again…). But Ferrari gives us a bit more reason to talk about it due to another strategic error this Sunday, as it provided us with so many others last season (even though we hadn’t asked for it).

We’ll recap the sequence: around lap 40, Fernando Alonso hits the barriers and puts himself out of the race. The safety car comes out to clear the Aston Martin off the track. Most of the drivers take advantage of this to pit and change tires, as the rain intensifies. Most, but not a call to the pits from Ferrari. Or rather, yes, but much too late, after everyone else. Both cars come back out, very far down the standings…

A comment from Fred Vasseur, in all this? « The result is not good », he stated with complete transparency, in his own unique style, to the Canal + microphone. Let’s hope lessons will be quickly learned before the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai next weekend. On his side, Lewis Hamilton also said that « it was very tricky and it went much worse than expected. The car was really very difficult to drive. » The Briton, however, said he was « grateful to have kept it out of the wall because that’s where it wanted to go most of the time. » It’s true that seen like that…