What happened to Ferrari's pace?

The Canadian Grand Prix was a big race for the Ferrari Formula 1 team. The Scuderia has received widespread praise for closing the monstrously large deficit to Mercedes from last season, and becoming the nearest challenger to the Silver Arrows this year.

But the momentum built up over the first four races of the campaign, which included an unexpected victory for Sebastian Vettel in Malaysia and a near-win for Kimi Raikkonen against the brake-by-wire-less Mercedes in Bahrain, has stuttered since May's Spanish GP, where Ferrari brought a substantial aerodynamic upgrade to the SF15-T but was well beaten by Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in the end.

Ferrari looked in better shape in Monaco, where pure power is less important than most tracks. Vettel was able to take advantage of Mercedes' strategic blunder under the safety car to steal an unlikely second place. However, Hamilton and Rosberg would have finished one-two comfortably but for Hamilton's unnecessary late stop.

Mercedes has produced by far the best power unit under F1's current V6 hybrid turbo regulations, utilising superb fuel efficiency and energy recovery to allow it to run more downforce (where it's also performing strongly in terms of development) than its rivals.

But Ferrari has already made significant improvements to what was a woefully underpowered, overweight and inefficient 2014 power unit over the winter, and brought upgraded internal combustion engines to Canada in the hope of closing the gap further.

Vettel started well with a strong Friday © LAT

After limited running in Friday practice there were some encouraging signs. Vettel lapped his Ferrari 0.316 seconds slower than Hamilton's Mercedes, with Raikkonen just behind - the nearest the Scuderia has managed to get at that stage of a race weekend all season.

Variance of fuel loads and engine settings always make Fridays difficult to read; only on Saturday afternoons, when the fuel comes out and the engines get turned up to full whack, do we truly get to see what tools the drivers have to play with.

But on this occasion we didn't - in Ferrari's case at least. Vettel was hampered by an ECU problem on his car, which robbed the engine of power and meant he failed to escape Q1 - qualifying only 16th fastest and then relegated to 18th on the grid by a penalty for overtaking under red flags in the final practice session.

The four-time world champion has usually been the fastest Ferrari driver on Saturdays so far this season, and comfortably, outqualifying Raikkonen by an average of 0.473s in races where they've both made the top-10 shootout (so everywhere bar Malaysia, where Raikkonen dropped out in a rain-affected Q2).

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene urged Raikkonen to improve his qualifying form after Monaco, and the 2007 champion duly qualified third fastest in Canada, 0.621s adrift of Hamilton's pole time.

Vettel's average qualifying deficit to the fastest Mercedes in dry qualifying sessions this season is 0.855s, so the fact Raikkonen was two tenths closer than that average suggests Ferrari has closed the gap. If Vettel had enjoyed a clean qualifying session and participated in Q3, it's also reasonable to assume he would have been closer still - perhaps even able to split the Mercedes drivers, given Rosberg lost his way on set-up as he had when Vettel beat him to second on the Bahrain grid.

If Vettel had started second, the Canadian Grand Prix might have turned out to be a tense thriller, rather than the fairly monotonous Mercedes formation finish at the front that it was. Even the final margin of over 40s that winner Hamilton held over the third placed Williams of Valtteri Bottas was exaggerated by Raikkonen's unfortunate torque-map-induced burnout spin at the hairpin.

Without that costly moment, which the team could not be sure was down to an incorrect setting or a problem with the throttle map itself, Raikkonen would have finished on the podium. He was 4.5s clear of Bottas before he pitted on lap 26 and trailed Hamilton by less than 11s. That means Raikkonen's average pace deficit to the leading Mercedes over the first part of the race was 0.423s per lap.

Raikkonen stuck with Rosberg for a while at first © LAT

You could argue he would have been closer still but for the need to fuel-save 'quite a bit', as he put it, but Hamilton also spent much of his race saving fuel, to ward off a potential attack from Rosberg in the closing stages.

It's probably fair to say that, on balance, Ferrari did take a step closer to Mercedes in Canada - we just didn't get to see the full extent of that stride.

"We were hoping for a bit more of a closer fight and better result against them, but I think this circuit is going to show you the difference if you're lacking on something," said Raikkonen, who knows only too well how bad last year's Ferrari was.

"I'm sure the upgrade was good and worked as expected, but obviously we still have to work hard and improve things overall. I'm sure when we go to more normal circuit we will be stronger and we'll know where the differences were.

"The car is actually pretty nice. We had to fuel save quite a bit so that was a bit limiting today, but it's all those things not just the one. We have come a very long way since last year, like we see from the results, but we still have a way to go and I'm sure this circuit layout is one of the most difficult for us in the aspect where we are a lacking a bit.

"Obviously if you put more downforce in the car and put more power it's the easiest way, but it's not the easiest [task] to improve the cars, otherwise everyone would be able to do it, so we just have to keep working the same way we've been doing so far.

"I'm sure we'll get there but we need more time and I'm sure from circuit to circuit it depends where we are against Mercedes."

Alonso gave Vettel the toughest fight he could © XPB

Vettel started 18th on account of his penalty, but recovered to finish just 4.278s behind Raikkonen in fifth. The German lost time at his first pitstop and also suffered a couple of close shaves with Fernando Alonso's McLaren and Nico Hulkenberg's Force India at the final chicane, but the fact he was put on an aggressive two-stop strategy to help him progress through the field renders a race comparison to the Mercedes drivers redundant in reality.

But could he have realistically challenged them with a clean weekend in Montreal? "In the end we didn't [have one], so we will never find out," he said.

"I think from our side everything worked as expected. Surely you cannot expect miracles. Look at the gap in pre-season testing - it was huge. Since then I think we were able to close, some races more, some races less. It's not that easy. They are not idiots and they are also trying to make as much progress as possible. So if you close the gap it means you have to make more progress, which is not so easy.

"So far I think we are on the right track and things are going the right way."

Arrivabene too insisted his team had made strides forward here, claiming circumstances had prevented Ferrari making the most of an engine upgrade that he said was delivering everything the Scuderia expected it to.

"If you look at the pace of Seb during the race it's quite clear that in terms of timings we were there," he argued. "In terms of performance it's fine. The engine upgrade was giving us the positive answer we were asking for; unfortunately the weekend was not a good weekend because of a number of circumstances, but the response we have from the engine was good.

"It's a long way to go. We have to have a bit of humility to recognise they [Mercedes] are stronger than us at the moment, without thinking we have closed the gap so we can beat them every race. This is not realistic.

Ferrari chief Marchionne was on hand © XPB

"If you're asking me if I'm happy, no, I'm not happy. This weekend was not a good weekend."

The nature of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve places high demands on braking stability and traction, as well as pure power, so it's possible Ferrari has made a big gain in terms of horsepower, but still lacks a little in the other areas necessary to be fast here.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff could ultimately celebrate a comfortable one-two finish for his drivers, but he also reckoned the potential of Ferrari's upgraded package was masked by Vettel's Saturday difficulties and Raikkonen's spin.

"I think we must not underestimate the upgrade they have brought because we've seen a very strong pace on the Friday," he argued. "Maybe these bits haven't made it onto the car or the engine with the mapping they wanted to run, so my assumption without really knowing it is we haven't seen the best of Ferrari today.

"Sebastian had a very difficult Saturday and started from the very back, he had a messy race with Hulkenberg and ran into backmarker traffic, and Kimi obviously spun. I think they will bounce back strongly in Austria."

Watching Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne will certainly hope so, having flown in to Montreal to see his scarlet chargers finish a distant fourth and fifth. But Ferrari can also take encouragement from the difficulties Mercedes endured at the front.

Lewis Hamilton arrives in parc ferme after a relatively straightforward win © XPB

It sounds almost daft to say it when the team has just enjoyed another dominant one-two result, but Mercedes is now being forced to run fast enough that its drivers can run into trouble more easily. We saw a glimpse of it in Bahrain, when both cars encountered problems with their BBW systems, and in Canada both Hamilton and Rosberg had to take care with their cars to get to the finish in good order.

Rosberg's brakes were "in danger after the first third of the race", according to Wolff, which stymied his hopes of attacking Hamilton's lights-to-flag winning position at the end, while Hamilton was told repeatedly to save fuel throughout the race. This is perhaps a sign that Mercedes is now pushing its cars far harder than in the past, in order to remain ahead.

But it's also fair to say the Mercedes drivers are also racing hard at the front in an effort to beat each other. Hamilton was in peerless form again in qualifying (despite a messy build-up, which included shunting in the rain in practice two and flat-spotting two sets of tyres in final practice) and that's where he won this race.

Rosberg lost his way with set-up on a rogue set of tyres at the start of Q3, qualified second, and once Hamilton had aced the start and led into Turns 1 and 2 that was pretty much that.

The soft and super-soft tyre compounds (which Pirelli has made harder this year in order to make them available at more circuits) were also not degrading much on a circuit where tyre management normally plays a big part. This means the cars can run closer to full pace for longer (allowing for brakes and fuel management of course) and thus stretches the gaps between cars that are inherently quicker than others.

Beware those who reckon more durable rubber will make for better racing...

It would be easy to claim the Canadian GP - usually one of the calendar's more exciting races - was dulled this year because of the way the category is specified right now. But a combination of low degradation tyres/conditions and lack of safety car periods (usually common on this type of circuit) were more significant in that respect.

Plus the fact Mercedes still clearly has the fastest package on the grid, despite Ferrari's best efforts. It will take more than one combustion engine upgrade to turn that situation around.