In recent seasons, especially the last one, Ferrari lost a lot of presence on the international television signal of the Formula 1 World Championship races, mainly on Sundays, in which McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes shared the spotlight with 14 wins (McLaren), eight (Red Bull) and two (Mercedes). This year, however, Il Cavallino Rampante’s brand will be seen much more, at least in the first moments of the races, as was already clear on Sunday in Australia. There, Charles Leclerc snaked through the pack, from the fourth place he was on the grid, and headed into the first corner of the Albert Park circuit in the lead. Lewis Hamilton, seventh, gained four places, but went a little long under braking, a circumstance that repositioned him to fourth. in which Hamilton wriggled from fourth place to the lead on the first lap.
These two starts of the red cars were meteoric, but even less than what they can be if we take into account the tests that were seen in the preseason. There, the Monegasque and the British exhibited absolutely enormous speed in the initial meters, in the seconds immediately after the traffic lights went out, which left more than one with their jaw on the ground. “I think Ferrari can start in any of the top ten positions, and they will probably arrive at the first corner first and second. They have a rocket at the start,” said George Russell, the winner in Melbourne and the first leader of the competition, and one of the clearest favorites to take the victory (8.00, Dazn), where he will form the second, right next to Kimi Antonelli, his neighbor, who became the youngest rider – 19 years, six months and 18 days – in history in achieve a pole position. The third round of qualifying (Q3) was marked by problems in the gearbox of Russell’s W17, who was then able to do one last lap, in extremis, to anchor himself on the front line. Hamilton will start third and Leclerc, fourth. Carlos Sainz will start 17th and Fernando Alonso, 19th.
The key to Ferrari’s stratospheric outputs is in the power unit, the piece that practically monopolizes the information flow of this championship. Specifically, in this case, in the turbocharger. Builders can opt for different turbo sizes, and each choice favors more or less one phase of acceleration. And the Ferrari one is very small, a peculiarity that is a plus in starts, because it turns faster compared to those that are larger. And even more so with the emergence of the new regulation, which eliminates the MGU-H – energy recovery system from hot exhaust gases –, an element that helped the turbo. With all that in mind, the Ferrari’s advantage is so evident that it has already led to a conflict between Mercedes and the rest.
The difference between the launch speed of the Maranello cars and some of its rivals was so striking that it even led the International Automobile Federation (FIA) to modify the protocol, which from Australia gives five seconds of margin to the drivers to rev the engines. For many of the teams that is not enough, so a movement has been activated, of which Mercedes is a big promoter, to apply more changes to the protocol. This group relies on scenes like the one that Franco Colapinto starred in in the first seconds of the race in Melbourne, where a miraculous swerve allowed him to avoid taking on Liam Lawson’s Racing Bull, a cone. Many believe that it is only a matter of time before an accident occurs that could be serious.
