The 10 key tests Ferrari must pass in 2019

No matter what the metric used or the position held in the paddock, every verdict from Formula 1 testing was the same: Ferrari was ahead, and would arrive at the Australian Grand Prix as the favourite. In the past two years Ferrari has not even needed to have the fastest car to win in Melbourne, so the prospect of it holding an advantage over Mercedes is ominous.

But another victory in the season opener would not necessarily be an omen for Ferrari ending its title drought. After all, despite being defeated in each of the last two years in Australia, Mercedes has recovered to sweep both the drivers' and constructors' championship.

Ferrari is clearly enjoying a bounce under its new team principal Mattia Binotto. There is a morale boost within the team, he has begun to rebuild broken bridges with the media and has set out a clear position on team orders. All are areas that have undermined Ferrari in recent seasons, but this was low-hanging fruit for him to pick.

Binotto knows that "very little" is different in the make-up of the team and the resources it has compared to last year. It is through a new attitude and approach that meaningful change will occur.

The biggest tests are yet to come, and it will be well beyond Australia before we see if Ferrari is passing them.

Get Vettel's head right

The first challenge for Binotto is to keep Vettel in the headspace the four-time world champion has started 2019 in. In pre-season testing, Vettel looked like a man who has completely shaken off the hangover of a horrible season in which he made several major errors.

Vettel is arguably the most emotional driver on the grid, and benefits from an arm-around-the-shoulder management style: almost needing a paternal figure. OK, at Red Bull, his team boss Christian Horner was not that much older than him, but Vettel was evidently the star man, was treated as such, and thrived in the environment.

He may have held the advantage over Kimi Raikkonen in recent years, but Vettel never seemed to have the kind of relationship with former team boss Maurizio Arrivabene that he needed. As ex-Ferrari boss Ross Brawn puts it: "The team was in a little bit of disarray last year, with Sergio [Marchionne] passing away and then clearly there was some friction in the team between Maurizio and Mattia. It wasn't smooth. It wasn't an easy environment."

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton are such a mighty combination that Ferrari needs to be at its best to topple the champions. Vettel being identified early on by Binotto as the team's reference point for the championship will do wonders for his confidence, and reduce the distraction he might have had by being worried about his new, rapid team-mate. Speaking of whom...

Manage expectations of Leclerc

Charles Leclerc's Ferrari debut is hotly-anticipated. World championship-winning drivers and team bosses are declaring he can take the fight to Vettel and unsettle him. It is big pressure to put on such young shoulders, and something Ferrari has been keen to avoid adding to.

Binotto and Ferrari must strike the right balance here, for challenges lie ahead however Leclerc begins life at Ferrari. There is every chance Leclerc will make a flying start to 2019 and be on Vettel's heels - or maybe even ahead - from the beginning.

Leclerc is his own biggest critic, and was furious with himself for understandable errors at the start of his rookie season

If that happens, Ferrari must manage the swirl of attention and expectation that will trigger. Leclerc thinks life has already changed since he was named a Ferrari driver: it could hit him like a freight train if he is fighting for the world title straight away.

If Leclerc takes time to settle, he must be backed to protect his confidence. Leclerc is his own biggest critic, and was furious with himself for understandable errors at the start of his rookie season. He is very attentive to detail and eager to improve, which gives Ferrari a major asset to work with. Binotto and his team need to ensure Leclerc does not put too much pressure on himself, either.

Do not fumble the development race again

Let's say Ferrari starts 2019 with a solid advantage of two to three tenths over Mercedes. The onus will then be on it to maintain that advantage, and not get distracted in developing the SF90. Ferrari never had that sort of advantage last year, it is true, but still got outgunned in the development race and headed down a blind alley later in the season. A repeat could throw this golden opportunity away.

One of the biggest pre-season concerns was that moving Binotto out of his role as chief technical officer would threaten the progress he has been intrinsic to on both the engine and chassis side. Ferrari would be getting a better boss, but would he be leading a team with an inferior car?

Binotto was made team principal a long, long way into the SF90's birth. The quality of the car right now is barely affected, if at all. But early-season upgrades and the development philosophy may be. Ferrari's task is to ensure that it does not lose technical direction while Binotto is dealing with other matters.

Key to that is the understanding that Binotto was doing 95% of this job as chief technical officer. So, in reality, little should change.

Translate early off-track wins into real ones

Ferrari's encouraging start to 2019 will mean nothing if it does not hit the ground running in Australia and beyond. Winning the phoney war of pre-season testing does not offer points and there were warning signs that however fast the Ferrari is, it could be tripped up.

Binotto said he would not let himself be satisfied with Ferrari's pre-season. "I'm pleased because we could do a lot of work, but I'm not pleased with where we are," he said on the final day. "I would like to be faster, I would like to be more reliable. There is still much to do and the season has not started yet. The season is 21 races. Testing is only testing for a few days."

Part of this was reliability concerns. The team encountered small issues, none of which would be individually troubling, but together painted a picture of a car that risks being fast, but fragile. We also saw several times in 2018 that Ferrari's race management under pressure was flawed.

Ferrari may have an advantage now but if it shoots itself in the foot and costs itself points early on then a feeling of Groundhog Day could set in. Binotto cannot let his team rest on its laurels.

Work without fear

One of Binotto's primary objectives as Ferrari team principal is to emphasise a group mentality. He says he will "never be used" to being the boss, but that is chiefly because he understands the responsibility of working for F1's most famous team.

Binotto wants to be open in his communication with his employees, to help them understand what it means to be Ferrari and what is expected of them. He has worked his way up from engineer-level to the top of the racing pyramid, so knows exactly what it takes. The purpose is to encourage the mentality that brings the best out of his team and give it the sort of environment in which it can thrive.

Fostering that relationship with his team is vital for Binotto because he is trying to unpick a blame culture that has been decades in the making. The end goal is for every person at Ferrari to be willing to take risks without being frozen by the thought of failure. Only then can Ferrari innovate without fear.

"I'm lucky to have a great team and my role is simply to put everybody in the best position to deliver," says Binotto. "I'm taking care that each single person has got the right situation, can deliver well, and that's what I need to do. I'm pretty sure that if you are working properly, you achieve your best."

Quell the first crisis

At the start of pre-season testing at Barcelona Binotto joked to Autosport that he was happy and smiling now, but for us to wait until the first race. Maybe then the door will close and he will say 'no comment', he joked.

Binotto knows he has not really changed anything tangible in his new role, or faced a major setback. It is easy to enjoy that new-boss bounce when the car build is encouraging, when launch season kicks off and everyone is champion in their own head, and when testing starts so positively.

What happens the first time Vettel makes a major mistake? Or Leclerc defies a team order? Or a wheelgun falters in a pitstop, the wrong strategy call is made, or an engine goes up in the smoke?

In those moments, Ferrari's bid to move away from its blame culture will be tested. It is in high-stress scenarios that people tend to revert to type, and it would be easy for the shutters to come down swiftly if Ferrari falters in its reaction to a first crisis. That would undermine the new culture Binotto is trying to instill, hurt a lot of the early goodwill the team has built up and potentially threaten morale if the response is inappropriate.

Like it has been on-track, Mercedes should be the benchmark here. It has rarely, if ever, shied away from fronting up to its problems - think Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg in its most fiery, damaging moments. Ferrari must be willing to do the same to show its new culture is real.

Butt heads with rivals

If you have watched the Netflix F1 documentary, you'll have seen the frosty relationship between Red Bull team boss Christian Horner and Renault chief Cyril Abiteboul go sub-zero. Those two have thrown punch and counter-punch for the past few years, just one example of the sort of political maelstrom that breaks out regularly behind-the-scenes in F1.

If you have seen Binotto with his team, or heard him speak, you would assume an apolitical character by nature, more intent on man management and scoring points in the world championship than scoring points over rivals off-track.

Binotto will need to stick his head above the parapet at times this year. It's not about being controversial for the sake of it. He does not need to be throwing out soundbites left, right and centre. But after Marchionne and Arrivabene's failure to clearly communicate Ferrari's position on almost anything and everything, Ferrari needs a leader that can place its view on record without being needlessly aggressive or divisive.

This also feeds into how Ferrari communicates internally. Team members do not live in caves, they read the media. If they see Ferrari is silent, or defensive, or being bullied by rivals, they will begin to form their own opinions instead of being properly informed.

So, whether it's addressing a concern over something on-track, responding to an allegation, outlining a position on the short or medium-term future of F1, the clearer and more open Ferrari is with its communication the better.

Binotto will not necessarily have to butt heads with his rivals. But he needs to be willing to.

Negotiate a new F1 deal

Supposedly, Binotto's early weeks in charge at Ferrari involved a lot of time working on the new commercial agreement with F1. It was more of that than anything else at first. While his attention will be drawn to more pressing on-track matters once the season starts, he will not be allowed to take his eye off the ball: Ferrari's elevated status as a team with more financial reward from F1 than any other is under threat.

For many, this is a good thing. Ferrari does not need to be the most successful team in an F1 season to earn more than any other, which is obviously a lopsided situation. Yet Ferrari always argues it deserves that because it has been around the longest and brings so much prestige to the championship.

Whether it comes down to its prize money status, a cost cap, technical regulations or whatever, Ferrari's role in the negotiations - and therefore Binotto's - will be key.

While Binotto and his superiors John Elkann and Louis Camilleri - splitting the CEO/chairman/president roles that Marchionne melded into one - have been praised by poacher-turned-gamekeeper Brawn for being more flexible over the new agreement, they will not be a soft touch.

"I'm optimistic, particularly with the new management at Ferrari," says Brawn. "They've recognised the need for Formula 1 to be more equatable. Ferrari will fight their end as best they can, but logic will have a fair part in trying to find a solution."

Handle the rise of Leclerc

Sooner or later, Ferrari will need to deal with Vettel and Leclerc going wheel-to-wheel. Working on the basis Leclerc will need a little bit of time to gel would indicate Vettel establishes himself as the championship contender - and that means if Leclerc is firing on all cylinders in the second half of the season, he could be a thorn in Ferrari's side.

Binotto has already moved to try to handle this by making it clear that, this year at least, Vettel is effectively its nominated champion. Yet he also knows that Vettel needs to be kept on his toes - and that it would be very risky to try to control Leclerc too much.

Ferrari cannot play the 'Leclerc is the newcomer and therefore Vettel is the initial priority' card forever

"The two will be free to fight," says Binotto. "We will not ask Charles to go slow, or Sebastian to be faster.

"But certainly if there is any ambiguous situation at the start of the season, Sebastian is the one who has got more experience, he has been with us many years, he has already won championships, so he is our champion."

Binotto thinks this is the best solution for Vettel, for Leclerc, and for Ferrari as a whole. And in principle it should work very well. But Ferrari cannot play the 'Leclerc is the newcomer and therefore Vettel is the initial priority' card forever, which leaves the potential for a major flashpoint in the Vettel/Leclerc dynamic.

There will come a point where Leclerc simply cannot play second fiddle. When that situation arrives, Ferrari will need to handle it strongly.

Win the title

OK, this is an obvious one to end on. Of course, Ferrari needs to rise to the challenge of winning the title if it is going to win the title...

But this is a test of mentality rather than of mathematics. It's about Ferrari combining its mass of resource and ability, threading it together across a season, eliminating mistakes and managing the various landmines that will be placed in its path across the year. As Vettel puts it, "we have all the ingredients" from previous years, it's just that in the past Ferrari has failed to "put things 100% together".

Former team boss Arrivabene once said that Ferrari needed to build a habit of winning. That was a classic piece of stating the obvious with no real plan or method of achieving it. Binotto and the 'new Ferrari' we have seen through pre-season need to find a way to change that.

"The feeling is positive, the atmosphere is good, the people are happy," says Vettel. "I think we have something to build on."

Whether that translates into a first Ferrari title since 2008, or not, will depend in part on how it deals with the challenges presented here - as well as any new, or unexpected, tests that emerge along the way.