Ferrari has insisted Formula 1‘s Australian Grand Prix didn’t provide a “representative picture” amid Charles Leclerc’s concern McLaren was two seconds a lap faster.
McLaren survived a chaotic season-opening race run in mixed conditions at the Albert Park Circuit to commence the new campaign on top as Lando Norris prevailed.
Ferrari had appeared in a position to mount a genuine challenge to the Woking-based squad based on the initial practice sessions as Leclerc topped the times in FP2.
However, the Italian marque’s challenge subsided as the weekend progressed, culminating in a nightmare race which saw the side’s cars lag home in eighth and 10th.
Leclerc, who led new team-mate Lewis Hamilton, professed that McLaren’s advantage might have been worth a couple of seconds per lap in the worst-case scenario.
“They were incredibly quick today,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week.
“To be completely honest, I know that they are incredibly quick because I’ve heard they are incredibly quick.
“But my engineer didn’t even tell me once the lap times of the McLaren. I think they were too far ahead.
“So I don’t exactly know whether it’s a second or a second and a half or two. I hope not two. But I’ve heard some numbers that are quite impressive.
“So we’ll have to… Now I’ll go back and look into it and try to understand where we are losing the most compared to them.”
Ferrari denies Australian GP was representative
But although he has conceded that McLaren is ahead, Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has asserted that the changeable conditions in the race distorted the overall picture.
The Frenchman noted Max Verstappen spurning 14 seconds within 10 laps to the McLaren duo when he experienced excessive tyre degradation to validate his claim.
“The conditions today are not representative at all of the picture of the performance,” Vasseur told media including Motorsport Week post-race.
“It is more that if you look from what we did Friday morning to Q2 it is much more representative than the pace in race conditions today.
“Even if you look on the time of Verstappen it was fluctuating plus or minus one second from one lap to the other because of overheating the tyres.
“The real picture of performance is Friday and Saturday. Even in this case, McLaren is one step ahead.”
Ferrari expects tight battle to materialise
McLaren’s nascent dominance has gone against the anticipation that the final season with the current rules would contain a close battle between the leading quartet.
However, Vasseur is convinced that the gaps are small enough to guarantee that the pecking order will take on an alternative complexion during the upcoming races.
“The expectation is always to do the best that we can, with the car we have and we keep the motivation,” he outlined.
“Our target isn’t P1, P3, P12; the target is to do the best job that we can.
“Today we didn’t do the best job but we will start from scratch in China.
“We have to always keep in mind the last four races, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and us, we won one each, always with [a] big gap [to the rest].
“It was changing weekend after weekend because the fight is tight and if you don’t adapt the car to the weekend, the tyres, the track temperature, you are out of the range of performance.
“I think next weekend will be different.”
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