Just how bad is Ferrari's bad start?

The 2019 season has been a continuous series of disappointments for Ferrari, and Friday's failed attempt to review Sebastian Vettel's Canadian Grand Prix penalty was a stark reminder that even when the car can beat Mercedes, it doesn't. Practice in France was another blow for Ferrari.

As team principal Mattia Binotto said ahead of the weekend, the updates brought here are important not only for performance but also - and more significantly - because they have the potential to validate Ferrari's longer-term development strategy.

Being behind Mercedes on pace was to be expected, but pacesetter Valtteri Bottas was 0.649 seconds quicker than the lead Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Vettel, who was just behind Leclerc having aborted his first qualifying simulation lap after running wide, gave about as positive a verdict about Friday practice as the FIA stewards did in rejecting Ferrari's request to re-open the Canada penalty debate.

"Not so good, to be honest," said Vettel. "A lot of work ahead of us. [The updates] didn't bring what we were expecting, so we'll see what we can try and find overnight. So maybe a bit better off tomorrow."

Ferrari's upgrades, including modified front and rear wings and brake duct tweaks, were not an unmitigated failure by any means. Some of these new parts will be carried over into Saturday and, presumably, that means they are delivering an improvement. But there's no sign of Ferrari being immediately able to take the fight to Mercedes - at least, not without a massive step forward overnight.

Given the conditions, it perhaps wasn't a surprise to see Bottas excelling on the first day of practice. Not only is he having his most convincing season yet, but he is a superb judge of grip levels on green tracks and looked more on top of the Mercedes and the propensity of the rear end to give up throughout the day than team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Bottas's pace, even with a relatively small improvement from medium to soft rubber that fell some way short of Pirelli's estimate of 0.6-0.7s, meant Mercedes was the only car to dip into the 1m30s bracket.

Single-lap pace

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m30.937s
2 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m31.586s
3 McLaren (Norris), 1m31.882s
4 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m32.049s
5 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m32.677s
6 Haas (Magnussen), 1m32.789s
7 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m33.020s
8 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m33.023s
9 Racing Point (Perez), 1m33.300s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m34.614s

It was a difficult day for Hamilton. He was second fastest to Bottas, but his best lap was set early in FP2 while lapping on medium-compound Pirellis, so wasn't representative. This was because the rear stepped out on him in Turn 3 on his first qualifying simulation lap on softs, sending him sideways off the track, over the kerb at the exit of the corner and then across the circuit to the runoff at the exit of Turn 4.

He was unable to complete a quick lap thanks to a combination of that off and a misfire that Mercedes picked up after the spin. So the gap to Bottas isn't representative, although he still appears to have some work to do to get on top of the car. Things should improve as the circuit rubbers in and the set-up is refined.

"I struggled already in P1 and then made some changes for P2," said Hamilton. "Then still the general issue was still there, with a lot of snap oversteer. But I don't think it's anything we can't rectify."

The team is confident too, with trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin hopeful Hamilton can be given the rear end he needs to improve on Saturday.

"We would have continued on that tyre, but we detected a misfire shortly after and brought the car in to investigate," said Shovlin. "We were able to get back out to do some long-run work after fixing the issue and the car looked to be working well for Lewis on race fuel.

"We have a bit of work to do tonight to see if we can further improve the rear end, but we seem to have a decent car to work with. So, overall we are quite happy."

It's a blow to Ferrari that even with Hamilton having a troubled FP2, neither of its cars were able to split the Mercedes. Last season, particularly in the first half of the year, Ferrari made a habit of making a big step overnight, but based on the seven races so far this season it's Mercedes that is making bigger strides (an average of 2.167% improvement from FP2 to Q3 compared to Ferrari's 1.878%).

There's also the threat of Red Bull and the 'Spec 3' Honda turbocharger and V6 upgrades. Verstappen's pace was not representative, as he had to abort two qualifying simulation laps before finally completing one that was only a tiny fraction faster than his first-run pace.

That allowed McLaren to sneak into third place on another impressive Friday for the team. But that position is misleading; Red Bull is third fastest and Ferrari will be hoping the upgraded package doesn't have enough pace to cause it even more trouble.

Whether McLaren can maintain this form remains to be seen, and in Montreal a Class B-leading Friday was followed up by slipping behind Renault - which struggled on Friday at Paul Ricard - but it's another good step for the team.

The long runs don't give Ferrari any hope either. The soft Pirellis were tricky, and longer runs using that rubber were all over the place thanks to the significant graining that led not just to degradation but significant wear. In itself, this is another potential problem for Ferrari as getting through Q2 using mediums could be vital for the race.

Pirelli's Mario Isola estimated that the softs would last around 10 laps in the race, limited by the wear rather than degradation. And even though the track will continue to evolve, the graining that accelerates this process might be eased a little but, apparently, not eliminated. In short, stay off the softs.

But even if Ferrari can get through Q2 and set the stage for a one-stop using mediums then hards, its pace was unremarkable. The quicker of the two Ferraris lagged eight-tenths behind on medium rubber, albeit still ahead of Red Bull, giving little solace.

Long-run pace (mediums)

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m35.677s (8 laps)
2 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m36.479s (4 laps)
3 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m36.704s (6 laps)
4 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m37.129s (13 laps)
5 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m37.170s (7 laps)
6 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m37.310s (4 laps)
7 Haas (Magnussen), 1m37.311s (7 laps)
8 Racing Point (Perez), 1m37.632s (10 laps)
9 Williams (Russell), 1m38.836 (12 laps)

*No meaningful medium data for McLaren

It would be exaggerating to declare this a disastrous day for Ferrari. It's not unusual to see it behind Mercedes this season despite its Montreal form, and the updates were, in some ways, a qualified success.

"The data we got today is matching with what we were expecting, so in that respect we are happy," said Binotto. "[It is] the reason why at least we are keeping some of the components on the car.

"We know it is not sufficient for what we are looking for, but as I said, it was important for us to understand at least the direction and we got relevant data for that."

But a qualified success is not enough for Ferrari right now. Vettel is 62 points behind Hamilton in the drivers' championship and the team is 123 down in the constructors' race. There's still time, but with five races spread over just seven weekends the clock is running down.

"The next races will be very important, because obviously once you hit race 10, which more or less is half-time, then there's only 11 races left," said Vettel on Thursday. "So we obviously, at some point, need to start turning things around. Otherwise, you can't beat them by finishing behind them."

Nothing that happened on Friday at Paul Ricard suggested Ferrari would be anything other than behind Mercedes this weekend. Friday analysis always comes with the usual caveats about tentative conclusions, and things could change overnight, but right now it's looking like another disappointment to add to Ferrari's catalogue of them.

None of this means Ferrari's development direction will prove to be wrong in the longer term, or that all hope is lost, but when it comes to French GP hopes, right now Mercedes looks odds-on for an eighth 2019 victory.