Sebastian Vettel’s win in Belgium on Sunday was certainly good for both he and Ferrari and as this left Lewis Hamilton warning his team that they cannot bluff any longer, Mercedes did use their new spec 3 engine at Spa Francorchamps as did Ferrari.
For me, the most intriguing part of the balance of the 2018 season will be in the details. If, and I say if, Ferrari have surpassed Mercedes on power output as evidenced by the Belgian Grand Prix, there is no new engine upgrades for the balance of the year or at least no new spec 4 engine. If that’s the case, then we are seeing what the team shave in terms of power for the balance of the season. Lewis said:
“Everyone asks at press conferences, ‘who do you think is faster, you or Ferrari?’. They’ve had the pace, the upper hand on us, for some time.
“Those last two races, before here, we just did a better job with it even though they had better cars.
“But if you’re playing with a deck of cards, and you’re bluffing, there’s only a certain amount of time you can do that before your opponent realizes you are doing that.”
This means that power circuits such as Spa and Monza could certainly favor the Ferrari while Singapore and Abu Dhabi or Brazil may not. The championship is going to come down to details and what improvements Mercedes and Ferrari can make with their chassis design and aero to make the most of their spec 3 power units.
Can Mercedes claw back some of the power through making their car much more slippery through the air? Can Ferrari match the development pace of Mercedes should they find key aero efficiency gains that maximize their power output or drivability? Can Ferrari stop making errors in strategy such as Kimi low-fueled car in qualifying on Saturday or mishaps and bad timing as well as errant strategies?
We all discussed this back in June that the reality of this season is going to come down to the fine details and the two races Lewis won prior to the summer break were massive for the team and very damaging to Ferrari.
Mercedes, on balance, have been the better team with strategy and timing it right and it doesn’t hurt that you have Lewis at the wheel or Valtteri. Kimi has raised his game only to find a team who wasn’t quite ready for him to raise his game and it seemingly has caught them off guard with errors and issues on his side of the garage—“Steering Wheel”, “no drink”, no fuel, slower strategy.
If Ferrari have the upper hand, they’ll need and error-free run to Abu Dhabi in order to win the title. Mercedes and Lewis won’t be bluffing and they won’t roll over and play dead on this championship. Ferrari will need to dig deep to make best use of any power advantage they have as the teams are pretty much set for the rest of the season as far as power goes.
Hat Tip: Sky Sports F1
100% agree – the rest of the season is all about the details, and VET and Ferrari have a points deficit to make up on top of it. Monza should be a lock for Ferrari considering the short time between races and power/drag advantage they had at Spa. The rest of the tracks aren’t as straightforward. No matter what happens, I’m very happy that there is SOMEONE around challenging Mercedes this year. Even last year at this point in the season, Ferrari was clearly still lacking power as they lost Qualy and the Race at both Spa and Monza. It… Read more »
Yeah, I am very intrigued to see if they can make the most of the power and what Merc will do to offset the power deficit as well as that power’s effectiveness on tracks that it may not be as critical on. Also, there’s the rain issue and Ferrari seem to struggle on the wet tires. Should be interesting.
I feel we will have some exciting racing this last portion of the year. I believe both will need to start pushing the reliability of their power units beyond where they are comfortable and I can imagine one or both may take a 4th engine just to be able to push harder for the remainder of the year.
Fun read. Nice take.
I’m going to start following the B-championship with more interest. I realized today that there has only been one occasion where a non-Merc/Ferrari/RBR driver found the podium. Can anybody guess who it was without looking it up?
The whole grid is pretty interesting from top to bottom. How far will ‘Force India’ be able to climb back up?
Too bad DRS has pretty much neutered the racing excitement. Although we finally got to see a battle go back and forth a few times.
you’ll get no arguments from us on the DRS. :)
Ferrari have had the best car in dry conditions at least for a while, as evident at Silverstone down the wellington straight. The problem for Ferrari is the mistakes they’ve made. On several occasions this year, either Vettel or Ferrari themselves have thrown away valuable points and sure victories. If they can avoid anymore blunders and it doesn’t rain every race, this is Ferrari’s best chance. Thankfully for them also, Mercedes has made its own share of blunders so far otherwise the task would be much harder. If they’d been up against bulletproof Mercedes of a couple of years back… Read more »