Ferrari’s first 1-2 since 2022 arrived in Melbourne, courtesy of Carlos Sainz ahead of Charles Leclerc. The SF-24 of Australia was somewhat reminiscent of the Ferrari F1-75 that began the season in such impressive fashion. The 2024 machine from Maranello is showing great tyre management and impressive competitiveness. The question now is whether Australia should be treated as a one-off of the beginning of a new trend.
WHEN TYRE DEGRADATION COMES INTO PLAY, RED BULL ARE BEATABLE
A topic that dominated post-race discussion was whether Ferrari would have won without Max Verstappen’s retirement. “No one knows, and no one will ever know,” replied an ever-pragmatic Fred Vasseur.
The gap to Checo Perez was around half a second per lap, although this is not representative. “Sometimes the gap between Max and Cecho is big,” the French team principal correctly underlined. A tear-off stuck in the bottom also had to be considered, costing the Mexican RB20 around 20 load points (three-tenths per lap).
Would Verstappen have been in the fight with the Spaniard? Some insiders, even very senior ones such as Andrea Stella (McLaren team principal), believe so.
“Today, we had a similar pace to Ferrari, and I think Verstappen could have also been with us,” said the Italian engineer. However, regardless of whether Red Bull was fast enough for victory, Max Verstappen would have almost certainly had a tougher time.
In a race where the most important limitation was wear generated by graining, Red Bull became more vulnerable. Of course, the reigning Champions are extremely good at tyre management – as evidenced in Bahrain. In the opening round of 2024, the RB20 was among the few to pull off an effective strategy with the softs (C3). Meanwhile, most of their rivals used the Medium and Hard compounds to optimize their strategy.
Still, this does not mean they are without any weaknesses – especially with Ferrari’s progression. Red Bull’s traditional advantage has been eroded over winter, meaning Ferrari are no longer fearful about losing performance from Saturday to Sunday.
FERRARI INCREASINGLY CONFIDENT IN RACE TRIM
“When we race on tracks where graining occurs, the Ferrari is always very, very strong,” said Christian Horner. “It’s something that already happened in Las Vegas last year, and we know that we need to improve in this area.”
Maranello was aware that Red Bull could be vulnerable this weekend. It is no secret that Fred Vasseur made such confident statements in the build-up to Australia. The French engineer outlined that “As a team, we think we can play our cards… for our part, we are determined to take an aggressive approach to try to put pressure on our rivals.”
Ferrari believed that Albert Park could produce the necessary conditions to put Red Bull within striking range. Their calculations, as it turned out, were correct.
Even though Charles Leclerc was disappointed post-qualifying and Sainz missed a chance for Pole (due to an error in Turns 9/10), the Italian squad was not discouraged.
“We were a little disappointed yesterday because we felt like we could have done a better job. But considering that the race was more about tyre management and their degradation, it wasn’t a drama. Today was a good example of this,” said Fred Vasseur after the race.
Ferrari knew they had a strong race car, which they believed was more important than having a perfect Saturday. “By minimising wear, you will overtake anyone who qualified before you because you get much more performance,” said Andrea Stella in Australia.
However, the pecking order in Japan could revert to what was seen in Bahrain and Jeddah. In many ways, Albert Park is considered an unusual circuit in terms of its technical characteristics.
“Japan is a completely different circuit, a circuit with very, very fast corners. And our problems, I hope, were related to the Melbourne track,” Helmut Marko told Sky Sports after the race.
“I am therefore convinced that Max will return to dominate in Japan.”
