Favourite Ferrari can't be "blinded" by pace
Perhaps more so than at any other point in 2019, Ferrari looked head and shoulders faster than its main Formula 1 rivals in Friday practice at Spa. However, a hint of an issue that appeared in FP2 suggests it can't take anything for granted
If something has happened five times previously and always with a negative result, it stands to reason there's little justification to expect a different result. Ferrari set the Friday practice pace at Spa, the sixth time that has happened in 13 races in 2019 - so why should that confer it the status of favourite?
It's a valid question, but Ferrari's astonishing failure to win a single race this year has not always been down to a loss of relative pace from Friday to Sunday. The performance profile of its cars on Friday is exactly in keeping with what we'd expect from a car that should be the quickest here given its strength on the straights. But there are still reasons not to be "blinded" by the performance, as Sebastian Vettel put it.
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