Australia Qualifying, Ferrari eight tenths behind Mercedes
The start of the 2026 World Championship reflects the fears that Mercedes‘ rivals had leading up to the tests. The Brackley-based team has a considerable advantage, even greater than what was seen in Bahrain: this is evidenced by the first starting grid of the new era, which sees the W17 monopolizing the front row in Australia, with all rivals eight tenths behind. Among these is Ferrari, which finished fourth with Charles Leclerc and seventh with Lewis Hamilton. A result that naturally does not satisfy team principal Frederic Vasseur.
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Vasseur’s words
“The first day of school was chaotic, the session was difficult. We made some mistakes, but it’s a shame, because I think there was room to reach third place. Mercedes was on another planet today, we will have to take steps forward to fight with them“, this was the Frenchman’s comment to Sky Sport F1. “Honestly, the session was chaos for us and for everyone, and we will have to be really on top of things tomorrow: if we look at the amount of problems all the teams had, the GP could be quite chaotic. Does the Mercedes advantage come mostly from the power unit? Sometimes you have to make a compromise on the engine in favor of the chassis, so you can’t make that kind of split. Certainly, if we look at the top speed, they have a decent advantage on the straight, but let’s focus on ourselves. The key aspect is to try to do the best we can. We are only at the first stage of these new regulations, we must continue to push and work as a team“.
Ferrari, at least for the start of the GP, is counting on the start, an area where it has shown it can make a difference. However, the five seconds of pre-start to increase turbo revs could change the picture: “The start will be another challenge, so far all the cars with the new procedure can start well, but for everyone the window is quite narrow, so we will have to do a good job to have a good start and recover positions“.
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Hamilton’s seventh position was particularly disappointing, on the fourth row and ahead of only the Racing Bulls among the cars that competed in Q3: “Lewis struggled to find tire temperature on the last lap, it was much colder than yesterday. He was really on the limit between a preparation lap and a push lap. It’s very much linked to what you do at the first corner, because if you don’t have consistency, you lose a lot“.
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