Has Silverstone exposed Ferrari's development race fears?

Once it was established that Ferrari was a serious threat to Mercedes at the start of the 2017 season, the big question was always whether it could keep up the development pace. Based on the evidence of Friday practice at Silverstone, the doubts remain and there will be some furrowed brows in the Ferrari garage.

Silverstone is a slightly unusual circuit, with ultra-fast corners like Copse, Becketts/Maggotts and Abbey posing a different challenge for the 2017 breed of F1 cars. While the average speed of Silverstone is actually slightly slower than what we saw in Austria last week, no track has been so demanding of high-speed poise.

To date, the Ferrari has been a fantastic all-rounder. At every circuit, the car has been very strong through a wide range of conditions, but there are two hints that this might be a little different at Silverstone.

As usual, the single-lap pace on a Friday is of limited use, and while a gap of 0.332 seconds between the fastest Mercedes and the fastest Ferrari is the biggest gap in an FP2 session this year save for the Australia season opener, it is in itself not a major drama - even with Red Bull breathing down Ferrari's neck and 0.270s behind.

PURE PACE RANKING (FP2)
1. Mercedes (Bottas) 1m28.496s
2. Ferrari (Raikkonen) 1m28.828s
3. Red Bull (Verstappen) 1m29.098s
4. Renault (Hulkenberg) 1m29.936s
5. Williams (Massa) 1m30.006s
6. McLaren (Alonso) 1m30.238s
7. Force India (Ocon) 1m30.383s
8. Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m30.555s
9. Haas (Grosjean) 1m30.661s
10. Sauber (Ericsson) 1m31.616s

On long-run pace, things look more concerning for Ferrari. The gap between Lewis Hamilton's pace, based on six flying laps using super-softs, and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel - who was best of the rest - was 0.687s.

With Bottas backing that up with a near identical pace to Hamilton, averaging just 0.074s slower over a comparable sample set, not to mention the Mercedes looking very co-operative on track, things are looking promising for the Silver Arrows.

The below long-run averages take into account six flying laps, all using super-soft rubber. Sauber and Toro Rosso did not complete meaningful long-runs on the super-softs to be included in this classification.

Pirellis anticipates a two-stop race, with tyre wear not a problem but thermal wear a concern and a risk of some blistering. So the super-soft pace is a limited window of performance, but one that allows a straight comparison from team to team.

LONG-RUN PACE RANKING (six laps)
1. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m32.759s
2. Ferrari (Vettel) 1m33.446s
3. Red Bull (Verstappen) 1m33.744s
4. Williams (Massa) 1m33.905s
5. Renault (Hulkenberg) 1m34.630s*
6. Force India (Perez) 1m34.637s
7. McLaren (Alonso) 1m34.643s*
8. Haas (Grosjean) 1m34.691s
*five-lap average

What's more, the gap between Ferrari and Red Bull is much the same. No wonder the ever-improving Milton Keynes squad is optimistic about making a fight of it for best of the rest. So when Daniel Ricciardo talked up his team's pace relative to Ferrari's it was definitely not without foundation.

The Red Bull certainly looked impressive on track. Watching in the Maggotts/Becketts complex, a spectacular, fast left-right-left-right-left complex (if you include Chapel that leads onto the Hangar Straight), this is a sequence that can't fail to be honest about a car's high speed performance.

The Mercedes looks very untroubled. The Red Bull, at times, looked stunning in terms of direction change and speed carried. The Ferrari, as always, looked decent but both Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen seemed slightly more troubled here. A spin for the German in FP1 here was testament to that, with the car just a little bit harder to drive and certainly less predictable for the drivers.

So how worried should Ferrari be? Arguably, it should be far more concerned about Red Bull's pace than that of Mercedes. The battle between Ferrari and Mercedes has ebbed and flowed all season and Silverstone is an atypical circuit, so this might just one of those weekends when Maranello has to accept second best.

GARY ANDERSON: "The gap from Mercedes to Ferrari certainly looks bigger, although it seems to have been reasonably black and white in recent races that it is the faster car in qualifying. And while Red Bull is not in there yet it's definitely close enough to cause a headache for Ferrari.

"The trend this season has usually been for Ferrari, when Mercedes has been quicker, to not worry too much because the gap was closed in the race. But that assistance for Ferrari is diminishing and, based on today, you have to question whether it has enough to make up the deficit. Red Bull being close enough potentially to get stuck in the middle could complicate things.

"So why are we seeing this? It might be that Ferrari is struggling a fraction with where they are taking the car to. The sidepod concept was something nobody else has on their car, and it has done well so far. But Ferrari can't follow anyone's development direction with it, and when you have such a complicated arrangement any modifications to the car can have a bigger impact.

"In Austria, Ferrari introduced a new front wing with a larger cord-section main plane. So this was a one-piece part rather than two-piece. That will change the characteristics of the car and I'm not sure it's 100% for the better in terms of consistency of the aerodynamics.

"I don't have Ferrari's data to look at, but you would expect that to increase low/medium-speed downforce but give you airflow separation problems at high speed. It'll make the car harder to drive and understand in such corners, particularly a complex like Maggotts/Becketts.

"If this is Ferrari's problem, then the team won't be looking forward to Spa or Suzuka with high-speed corners. In Ferrari's position, I'd consider using two packages depending on the circuit and the required aero characteristics because different tracks have different demands."

Ricciardo talked up Red Bull's hopes of taking the fight to the Ferraris, and there is real reason for Ferrari to be concerned. In terms of raw pace, looking in percentage terms based on the fastest Red Bull lap compared to the fastest individual lap of the weekend, this is actually the team's second-strongest of the 10 so far this year.

The strongest was Monaco, and this is the first time Red Bull has been within 1% of the pace since that race, floating around the 1.3-1.5% off mark in Canada, Azerbaijan and Austria. But that isn't enough to explain the fact Red Bull seems to be in the ballpark to bother Ferrari.

So if Ferrari carries this form into Saturday and Sunday, and remember things can and do change after Friday practice, then that does justify questions being asked about its development progress.

The other concern for Ferrari is the performance of Bottas. Again, the Finn was very close to Hamilton today and, if you were to run qualifying and the race based on the performance profile we would see today, you would expect a Mercedes front row lock-out and a one-two.

Those days where Vettel could be more confident of finishing ahead of Bottas even if Mercedes was faster have gone. But Bottas's five-place gearbox change penalty is certainly some very positive news for the red corner.

GARY ANDERSON: "Valtteri Bottas coming of age has been the big story of the past few races. When you move to a genuinely frontrunning team, things are different and he's spent six months learning to the point where he's now capable of dotting all of the i's and crossing all the t's.

"At Williams, a good day was a decent finish in the points. At Mercedes, anything off the podium is a bad day. You need to be on it consistently and Bottas now is. Look at Baku; beating Lance Stroll to second was not really about the last lap, it was about ensuring that he didn't leave time on the table once he had dropped back. Had he left a tenth or two behind, he wouldn't have been second. Then came Austria.

"If I had £10 going spare, I'd put it on Bottas for the title because we have seen in the past sometimes things do go wrong for Hamilton, even though he is still ahead in the points and you would expect him to be the favourite given he has already won three titles."

Whether this possibility of a weekend dominated by Mercedes, with Ferrari more worried about ensuring it stays ahead of Red Bull than gets ahead, reaches fruition remains to be seen. Certainly, Red Bull's drivers were noticeably well hooked up from the start of practice, with Ricciardo and Verstappen visibly hugely committed through Maggotts/Becketts early on.

Red Bull doesn't have a major upgrade package here, with the next one planned for Hungary. It does have some tweaks, but there's always the risk that it started the weekend well and could slip further back again as Ferrari recovers.

GARY ANDERSON: "It's always interesting to look at the relative gain of teams from FP1 to FP2, and Red Bull didn't make progress today. Usually, Mercedes rolls the car out of the truck and is so well prepared that the car is at 99.9%, which is why you often see other teams making gains.

"It could be that Red Bull had a better Friday than Ferrari relatively speaking and has less to find tomorrow. Then there's the question of how fuel loads play into all of that."

Whatever happens, the events of Friday practice and the pattern that is starting to be hinted at does mean there will be plenty of head-scratching at Ferrari as it attempts to defend Vettel's lead in the drivers' championship.

A year ago, you would have written Ferrari off. But this now appears to be a more robust team far better equipped to recover and make the best of its package.

Based on Friday, a good recovery would constitute holding off Red Bull comfortably and being able to be close enough to bother Mercedes in the race after arguably its worst Friday since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

With Bottas starting sixth at best, Vettel might well sign on the dotted line for second place to Hamilton were he offered it right now.