It’s fair to say that Ferrari haven’t had to the start of the season that was expected of them given their strong form at the end of last season. Taking back to back wins at the US and Mexican Grand Prix, and a double podium to cap of an encouraging end to the season, Ferrari were “meant” to be right at the sharp end from the beginning this year.

However as in many endeavours, past performance is no guarantee of future results in Formula One and after overhauling their car over the winter, including making significant changes to the front suspension, Ferrari is ****.

Starting from the fourth row in Australia would have already had alarm bells ringing, as both Williams and Racing Bulls had a car in front of the two Ferrari’s. Charles Leclerc seemed to be not far from the ultimate pace in practice, around two tenths off in FP1 and FP3 and topping the session in FP2. A stark difference to the gap in qualifying that grew to seven tenths to McLaren of pole sitter Lando Norris.

The wet conditions in the race gave opportunities to salvage a result that were ultimately squandered by the pit wall and the *** of poor communication at Ferrari. The car though, was still lacking a lot of pace and really didn’t deserve to finish any higher than sixth.

The next weekend in China started off on the right foot, but took at turn for the worst as the weekend gradually unravelled for the Scuderia. Lewis Hamilton took pole in sprint qualifying and led from start to finish to win the sprint race, the first sprint win for both Ferrari and Hamilton.

The rest of the weekend however, was a struggle. After making setup changes for the Grand Prix, Ferrari had none of their pace from the earlier sessions and qualified in a disappointing fifth and sixth. The disappointment continued into the race as Hamilton went backwards and Leclerc still couldn’t make much of an impact on the cars ahead. To cap off an anticlimactic performance in the Grand Prix, it was all for nothing in the end anyway as both cars were disqualified, Leclerc for being underweight and Hamilton for excessive plank wear. A weekend of two halves showed potential in the car but undeniably serious issues in extracting it.

Now at the most recent race in Japan, Leclerc managed a fourth place while Hamilton again had teething issues with his Ferrari. A fairly solid result for the team now that expectations have been adjusted to meet the current situation, but one has to wonder if Ferrari can unlock the magic of the first half of the China weekend whether they could still pose a serious threat to the McLarens.

With upgrades to the floor arriving in Bahrain, will this be the key to turning their season around?

Header Image by Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons