It was a bitterly disappointing weekend to be a Ferrari fan. Whilst the McLaren certainly felt like it was the quickest car during testing, the Ferrari appeared to be a potential challenger. But that was not what transpired in Australia. The McLaren won the race, whilst the Ferrari left the event with only five points. Ferrari wasn’t even the highest scoring Ferrari-powered car, with that honour going to Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber. The only question left to ask is, what happened?

Answering what happened regarding the McLaren is an easier deduction. They seem to have a dominant package, that can hold on to its tyres in a way that McLaren’s rivals cannot replicate. This allowed them to master sector three in qualifying where other cars faltered and whilst Max Verstappen was able to split the McLaren drivers early on, he eventually struggled to keep up. After Oscar Piastri passed Max, the McLarens were lapping around a second a lap faster than the Red Bull. The only thing that prevented them from wrapping up a first and second were the safety cars and changeable conditions, with heavy rain forcing Oscar into a spin that relegated him to finishing in ninth place. The fact that Max Verstappen was within a second of winning the race is just a testament to the relentlessness that won him the last four championships. But if the McLaren’s pace is replicated throughout the whole season, Max won’t even be able to get a whisker in the title fight.

Ferrari’s performance was awful. They qualified badly, taking seventh and eighth and then in the race made an unwise decision not to switch onto the intermediate tyres when it rained heavily late on. This led to a finishing position of eighth and tenth. The Ferrari looked like an embarrassment of a car. But it didn’t on Friday. On Friday, Ferrari looked like McLaren’s closest challenger. And what was most confusing was that there were several corners that Ferrari were faster at during Friday’s practice than they were during Saturday’s qualifying. This has led to speculation that Ferrari had to make a setup change that compromised their performance, speculation backed up by team principal Fred Vasseur’s assertion that we have yet to see the real Ferrari.[1] However, I am not getting my hopes up. Even if the lack of performance was due to necessary changes, this indicates that Ferarri either does not know how to set up the car, or that the car has an incredibly narrow setup window, neither of which are good omens for the season ahead. Lewis Hamilton did not join Ferrari in expectation of performances like the one we saw in Australia. But knowing the recent history of Ferrari, this was exactly the disappointment many Ferrari fans expected.

So that’s the disappointment of Australia over. Not that the race itself was disappointing, it was filled with fun and chaos. But that real Ferrari better show up in China. Otherwise, fans will start asking Fred Vasseur if the real Ferrari is in the room with us right now.

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[1] https://autoracer.it/it/vasseur-melbourne-scommessa-sbagliata-questa-non-e-vera-ferrari