Practice points to titanic Ferrari vs Mercedes battle

Mercedes and Ferrari were, near as makes no difference, bang on the same pace in Friday practice for the Chinese Grand Prix. After the dramatic swings across pre-season testing and the first two race weekends in Australia and Bahrain, with Ferrari, then Mercedes, then Ferrari again having the fastest underlying pace, will the 1000th world championship race be the first tight battle between the pair of the season?

The answer is, very possibly, because there were also indications that long-run pace for Ferrari and Mercedes might also be very similar. But there were also aspects of the Bahrain performance that carried over.

Looking at the fastest laps set on Friday, which must be laden with caveats even more than usual because of the tricky track conditions and the challenges of getting the tyres into the optimum window without overworking them, Ferrari still has the advantage on the straights.

Single-lap pace

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m33.330s
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m33.357s
3 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m33.551s
4 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m34.096s
5 McLaren (Norris), 1m34.296s
6 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m34.551s
7 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m34.634s
8 Racing Point (Stroll), 1m34.779s
9 Haas (Magnussen), 1m34.788s
10 Williams (Kubica), 1m36.121s

Bottas's infinitesimal advantage of 0.027 seconds was founded upon being 0.148s faster than Vettel through sector two. This starts just before the Turn 6 hairpin and runs to shortly before Turn 11 - a section of track that is predominantly corners.

Vettel, meanwhile, was significantly faster in sector one and fractionally quicker in sector three, which are far more dependent on straights. Again, this hints at an advantage for the Ferrari on the straights even after Mercedes reconsidered the levels of drag it could afford to run after identifying this, on top of the engine performance, as one of its weaknesses in Bahrain. There, Ferrari was gaining around half a second on the straights.

Ferrari being strong on the straights is not new, but what has been noted by rival teams this year is that rather than there being a particular kick of pace on the straight, the Ferrari's advantage is generally more sustained from the start of the straight - despite, in Bahrain, Mercedes ultimately having the edge on maximum speed.

If Ferrari and Mercedes are that close, tyre preparation in qualifying could be critical. Shanghai is front-limited, and it's important for lap time to have the front Pirellis in the window for the start of the lap

As Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff pointed out earlier on Friday, this isn't quite as simple as meaning it's a great engine in a lesser car.

"What needs to be said, because when I read articles it's always not accurately reflected - if somebody does a good job, he does a good job and that's a fact," said Wolff between Friday's two sessions. "And whether he has a good engine and out-performs all the others, or he has a decent amount of downforce and goes quicker around the corners, that is irrelevant. It is always about the performance of the package.

"As we have seen, Ferrari operating in Bahrain, they were superior to all the other teams and there was massive engine power on the straight - but it's not always engine power. Obviously drag levels are playing an important role in the calculation, this is something we need to evaluate.

"This morning [FP1] there was a frightening lap of Sebastian again, in straightline speed - but it is what it is, we have to stretch ourselves and fight and extract performance out of the chassis and extract performance out of the power unit. Having a benchmark like that helps and motivates."

Whether Ferrari can find another gear with its straightline advantage on Saturday thanks to engine modes in qualifying remains to be seen, but if it and Mercedes are so close then tyre preparation in qualifying could be critical. Shanghai is a front-limited circuit and it's important for lap time to have the front Pirellis in the window for the start of the lap. In particular, for the long, brisk, right-hander at Turn 1.

Discount an anomalous Bottas lap, which was 1.1s faster than any other in that stint, and it makes his average just 0.020s quicker than Vettel's

Given there are two long straights and two slow corners before that, it's difficult to combine having the rear tyres in the window and the fronts also switched on. This is something Mercedes struggled with here last year, meaning much of its disadvantage in qualifying was in the first sector. Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin suggested that balancing tyre temperatures is till something that is being worked on with Hamilton in particular.

"It's always a difficult circuit to balance as the long corners and the sequences cause overheating on one axle or the other so you are often left trying to tackle a number of different issues around the lap," said Shovlin.

"Valtteri has been fairly happy with the car all day, just trying to put a bit more front end into it over the sessions. Lewis hasn't found the car as easy to work with and we need to do some investigation overnight to understand why. Ferrari and Red Bull are all doing decent times on long runs and short runs so it looks like it will be tight but we have some scope to improve things overnight."

Last season, it was advantageous to set your Q2 time on the 'middle' compound so you could use it for the start of the race, something that the frontrunning teams would like to do here. But with Ferrari estimating the gain from medium to soft at 1.1-1.2s, it might not be so easy. On long-run pace, the performance on the soft Pirellis was heavily dependent on managing the degradation. Based on a seven-lap run on softs, with anomalous slow laps discarded, Bottas's run was the quickest.

Long-run pace (7 laps, softs)

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m39.315s
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m39.597s
3 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m39.692s
4 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m39.809s
5 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m40.153s
6 Racing Point (Perez), 1m40.193s
7 McLaren (Sainz), 1m40.249s
8 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m40.535s
9 Haas (Grosjean), 1m40.778s

*Williams did not complete sufficiently long run on softs

But there is a big caveat to be added to these times. Bottas's seven laps includes an opening lap at 1m37.742s, 1.1s faster than any other in that stint and clearly faster than his intended long-run pace. Discount that lap and it brings his average down to a 1m39.577s - just 0.020s quicker than Vettel. Again, if that's a more accurate read, it puts Mercedes and Ferrari on near-identical pace with Red Bull just over two-tenths behind - which tallies with the single-lap pace.

Red Bull struggled in Bahrain, but the team has admitted to picking up an aerodynamic problem that manifested itself. This might not have been so easily detected had it not been so windy in Bahrain, meaning it suggests some aero surface stalls were being triggered. Having used the post-event test to understand the problem, Red Bull appears to be back on the pace in China with its short and long-run pace putting it just under a quarter-of-a-second behind.

In the midfield pack, Renault looks to be the strongest and just ahead of McLaren based on a combination of single-lap and long-run pace. But Alex Albon put in an impressive run in FP2 on softs that was quick and also long enough to suggest he wasn't spending the rubber. While it doesn't mean Toro Rosso is faster than Red Bull, it could be in the argument at the front of the midfield in the race.

As always, things could well change significantly overnight as track conditions change and teams fettle their set-ups. Given the demands of this track, there could be some significant performance swings and, when the all-important qualifying engine modes are deployed, things can change further.

But if you based your predictions purely on what happened today and things don't change, this could be the first titanic Ferrari vs Mercedes battle of 2019.