Originally Posted by
Silent Bob
When Formula 1 left Barcelona behind and packed its freight off to Australia, Ferrari's electrifying testing pace suggested maybe, just maybe, Mercedes might face a genuine fight to retain its iron grip on the world championship in 2017.
Kimi Raikkonen set a scorching test pace, without even using the softest available tyre compound; Sebastian Vettel was so confident in his Ferrari that he felt he could afford to play mind games by deliberately lifting off the throttle on his quickest laps.
The Ferrari looked to be the best of 2017's new breed of F1 cars on the track too - stable, driveable, fast, consistent. It set the pace in longer running as well, and looked in genuinely decent shape ahead of the first race weekend. After stumbling in 2016, the Prancing Horse looked to have its gallop back.
Mercedes spent much of the pre-season talking up Ferrari's form too. Lewis Hamilton reckoned the Scuderia was the favourite, and said he was struggling to dial a decent set-up into his own car. Mercedes admitted some aspects of its new chassis weren't working perfectly, and the car also looked more difficult to drive and less consistent than the Ferrari.
But Vettel sounded a note of caution when he suggested that Mercedes was still the favourite, despite Hamilton's contrary suggestions and Ferrari's impressive testing pace. Vettel's three-tenths-per-lap advantage over Hamilton during race simulations in testing - usually the most representative barometer of pace in that environment - actually looked quite shaky when you considered that Hamilton did his race running in the first week, before Mercedes updated its car and engine.
Judging by the electric pace Hamilton set in Friday practice for the Australian Grand Prix, Vettel was absolutely right to be wary of Mercedes' true form. Hamilton struck a big first blow to the hearts of all those who hoped Ferrari might have Mercedes on the ropes by comfortably topping the timesheet, getting within a tenth of the fastest-ever lap of Melbourne's Albert Park circuit - which put him more than half a second up on Vettel.
PURE PACE RANKING
1. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m23.620s
2. Ferrari (Vettel) 1m24.167s
3. Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m24.650s
4. Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m25.084s
5. Haas (Grosjean) 1m25.436s
6. Renault (Hulkenberg) 1m25.478s
7. Force India (Perez) 1m25.591s
8. McLaren (Alonso) 1m26.000s
9. Williams (Massa) 1m26.331s
10. Sauber (Ericsson) 1m26.498s
As Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff put it, Hamilton was in a "league of his own" around Albert Park on Friday, and Hamilton admitted to relief at finally having the W08 working the way he wants.
"It was a night-and-day difference to how the car felt on the last day of testing, which was kind of a relief for all of us," Hamilton said. "There's things we struggled with in the test and things weren't quite perfect in the car. Here the car's brand new, the car's fresh: new floor, new wings, everything. Everything's performing at its optimum, which is great.
"I didn't know what to expect coming into today, whether we'd be ahead or not. It's a wonderful feeling, coming into a new era, to have a car be so strong."
But, if it wasn't for the three-time world champion's ballistic effort on ultra-softs, F1 would still be salivating over the potential prospect of a close battle between Ferrari and Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas dropped time to Hamilton in every sector of his flying lap, and finished the session 0.009s down on Vettel's Ferrari.
"A tough fight, as always expected when you're against Lewis," said Bottas. "It's never easy to try to be at his level or beat him, but that's always the target and it's only the first Friday of the season, so let's see how things develop and allow myself a bit of time to get into it.
"The car felt better than how it felt in Barcelona, so that is positive, but [there is] still work to do with the balance; I'm sure we can make the car still quicker.
"The longer runs, in the end they feel very good so I think the race pace is looking OK. For me, the main thing to focus on is the shorter runs, to try to find a bit more lap time for qualifying."
The race runs indeed make better reading for Bottas, who got within 0.235s per lap of Hamilton's average pace on the ultra-soft tyre, and was fastest of all when he bolted on super-softs near the end of the session.
LONG RUN RANKING
1. Bottas (Mercedes) 1m27.968s (SS) 7 laps
2. Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m28.057s (US) 10 laps
3. Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1m28.925s (US) 8 laps
4. Vettel (Ferrari) 1m29.058s (SS) 13 laps
5. Sainz (Toro Rosso) 1m29.189s (US) 10 laps
6. Kvyat (Toro Rosso) 1m29.392s (US) 12 laps
7. Perez (Force India) 1m29.602s (US) 9 laps
8. Ricciardo (Red Bull) 1m29.620s (US) 7 laps
9. Grosjean (Haas) 1m29.780s (US) 11 laps
10. Ocon (Force India) 1m29.884s (US) 11 laps
11. Hulkenberg (Renault) 1m30.150s (S) 14 laps
12. Stroll (Williams) 1m30.174s (US) 5 laps
13. Ericsson (Sauber) 1m30.376s (SS) 13 laps
14. Vandoorne (McLaren) 1m30.661s (US) 9 laps
15. Wehrlein (Sauber) 1m31.761s (S) 8 laps
But they don't make great reading for Ferrari. It is basically a second off the pace as things stand, on the two most relevant tyre compounds, which is a far cry from the comfortable position it occupied in testing.
Its efforts to get Mercedes reined back in via the FIA's suspension-rules clarification in pre-season have made no difference, and the W08 - even without its special heave damper at the front - is clearly working properly now the floor is no longer falling to bits.
By contrast the Ferrari does not seem to yet be working as well as it did in testing. The car looked nervous over the bumps in first practice, and Vettel declared himself unhappy with the SF70H's balance after a disappointing second session.
"The balance of the car is not yet where I want it to be," explained Vettel, who said the car doesn't yet feel as good as it should. "It's not bad, but I think we can do better. We had some small trouble this morning that cost us some track time, so it took a little longer to get into the groove.
"Obviously we've been very happy at testing, the times looked good, but it doesn't mean anything. You come here and that's when it matters. I think we were realistic about that. [There is] still a lot of work ahead of us, so we will see where it takes us tomorrow when everybody is showing what they can do."
Team-mate Raikkonen confirmed that Ferrari did not enjoy a clean day, so it will almost certainly improve on Saturday, but whether it can find six tenths relative to Mercedes for qualifying - and more than a second in race pace - seems highly unlikely. Bottas should also make life harder for Ferrari, if he gets his act together in time for qualifying.
There is also likely to be very little Ferrari can do strategically to get the better of Mercedes in the race, as Pirelli reckons the ultra-soft tyre is degrading by little more than 0.1s per lap, the super-soft by slightly less, and the soft tyre not at all.
All predictions point to a nailed-on one-stop race, so Ferrari's best hope will be to try to overtake Mercedes at the start, then avoid giving away crucial track position as it did here last year.
And what of Red Bull, the team many expected would be the main threat to Mercedes in 2017 before testing began?
Well, Daniel Ricciardo trailed Vettel by nearly half a second in his performance run, but made errors on his best lap that Red Bull estimates cost him three tenths. Team-mate Max Verstappen went off at Turn 12 on his final flier, damaging the floor to such an extent that it ended his session early. He had earlier picked up damage in first practice.
Ricciardo's long run was also disappointing, to the extent that Australia's home hero trailed both Toro Rosso drivers and Sergio Perez's Force India. It's possible he could have trailed Williams too, had Felipe Massa's car not broken down before he could complete any meaningful running in second practice.
We certainly haven't seen anywhere near the best of Red Bull yet, notwithstanding the usual caveats concerning relative fuel loads and engine modes.
"This morning was promising, we tried a few things this afternoon, [and] it's fair to say they didn't work as much as we'd like, so we'll probably go back a bit and then understand what we can do better," Ricciardo explained.
"Mercedes is quick but it's more Lewis at the moment than Valtteri. I think with the right set-up and the right lap in quali, we can mix it with Ferrari. If Lewis does a perfect lap with his car, then that'll be a stretch to take pole - but we're not too far off."
Red Bull seemed reasonably upbeat despite what looked on the surface like a disappointing day, and of course it will ultimately be the third-best team here at least. A reliability fix for the MGU-K on the Renault ERS means the RB13 can now power up its engine and should be able to get to the end of the race without breaking down.
Red Bull will be pleased if it can simply sneak ahead of Ferrari in the early races, confident that a big future engine upgrade planned by Renault, coupled with continual rapid chassis development, will allow it to start applying pressure to Mercedes again.
That would be great news for Formula 1, because at the moment it looks as though Mercedes - and specifically Hamilton - is likely to run away with the Australian Grand Prix, unless Ferrari can dip into its testing sandbag and rediscover a big chunk of pace.
Ferrari Freak
Forza Ferrari !
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