Ferrari denies theory F1 cooling problems hurt its Australian GP

The team started the season-opening weekend as clear favourite after a strong showing in pre-season testing, but it was unable to replicate that form in Melbourne as Mercedes turned the tables to take a surprise one-two finish.

While there was no immediate explanation for Ferrari's relative slump in form, several including Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko suggested its performance was compromised by cooling issues - which forced it to alter its aero and prevented it from maximising its engine performance.

Although Ferrari has not explained specifically what went wrong in Australia, it said suggestions of a cooling weakness were wide of the mark.

Team principal Mattia Binotto said: "I will not go into details into what happened. I think that is our matter.

"I have seen a lot of speculation in the newspapers and internet and I think what I read was not fully true.

"We do not have issues of cooling - I will tell you that.

"But I think that, as I said, at the end of Australia it has been a sum of many factors, from the power unit, to the set-up, to tyre management and I think it is only the sum of everything that made the total that we saw in Australia."

Ferrari has made unspecified modifications to its car for this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix to overcome the problems it encountered in Australia, with its dominant form in Friday's opening practice suggesting it has got to the bottom of its issues.

Binotto said it was not unusual at this stage of the campaign for teams to sometimes struggle to get the most out of a new car.

"This is the third track where our car is running this season," he said.

"First Barcelona, then Australia, and now it is here in Bahrain. I think we are simply learning the car.

"There have been many other occasions through the seasons.

"The performance of the car needs always to be optimised and track by track that is an exercise you are normally doing, preparing yourselves pre-event in the simulator, etc.

"But the process we are going through is starting to learn [about] our car and certainly we didn't optimise it in Australia."