After only one race, the pressure is already being felt at Ferrari

Photo: Darko Bandic / POOL / AFP
The second place of the Leclerc in the end is more of his calm through all the skirmishes and outputs to track, the speed of the car.

Ferrari is already feeling a huge pressure after a run of only supplemented in Formula 1 and the team is working hard to improve the aerodynamics of its cars for the Grand Prix of Styria on Sunday.

Instead of narrowing the gap with Mercedes, the Ferrari SF1000 seems to be less rapid than last year and the team could even lose feathers vis-à-vis the other teams.

“The SF1000 has not done the work, not as much as it responded to expectations,” admitted Ferrari in all honesty.

Ferrari has failed in the qualifications of the first Grand Prix of the season, the Austrian, Charles Leclerc taking the seventh place of the grid after you have acquired the majority of poles in 2019. Sebastian Vettel went from 11th place.

The second place of the Leclerc in the end is more of his calm through all the skirmishes and outputs to track, the speed of the car. Vettel, who finished 10th, was so irritated by the lack of balance of the car he told her that it was impossible to fly.

All of this ensures that the director of the team, Mattia Binotto, is facing a lot of pressure, given that the team was already behind Mercedes in the championship of drivers and constructors last year.

His decision-making has also been under a magnifying glass following a change of strategy in dispute, three days before the first training session in Austria.

He announced a new direction at the level of aerodynamic development, which means that the car will not be able to be improved before the third race of the season in Hungary.

But the monks of the barn are involved.

The president and chief executive officer of Ferrari, Louis Camilleri, has felt the need to curb the slide of the team and some aerodynamic improvements that are planned for Hungary, will instead be available as early as this week in Austria.

“This is assuredly not the position where we want to see Ferrari on the grid and we had to respond immediately”, said Camilleri. It is clear that we need to improve on all fronts. “

The race this week is the second of eight by 10 weeks in Europe. The GP changes name, but in fact it is played in exactly the same place as last week, at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, surrounded by the mountains of Styria, from which it takes its name.

Different title, but same goal for the pilot Red Bull’s Alexander Albon. After Lando Norris had succeeded in his prmeier podium last week — youngest brit to do so in 20 years — Albon has just missed his first podium for the second time in three races.

Both times, Lewis Hamilton has the fiat part of the story.

With a few laps to go Sunday, Albon had clearly better gums that Hamilton and his team-mate Mercedes Valtteri Bottas, winner of the event. In attempting to take — itself — Hamilton from the outside, the latter has seemed to moved slightly to his left, toward the car of Albon, who found himself off the track. Hamilton received a penalty of five seconds, the dragging of the second to fourth place.

In November last year in Brazil, in the second-to-last race of 2019, they fought for second place with two laps to go. Hamilton attempted to overtake Albon inside and hit his car. Albon was able to stay on track, but has slipped to 14th.

Albon was frustrated after Sunday’s race, which proved doubly disappointing for Red Bull, Max Verstappen had to retire early in the race when it occupied the second rank.

The director Christian Hornet is rather optimistic.

“I think it has the potential to fight with Mercedes. Maybe not on a tour, but on a season “, he imaged.