The other Ferrari driver troubling a world champion

One of the major storylines of the current Formula 1 season has been that of a young Ferrari driver piling the pressure on a famous world champion and threatening to usurp his position as team leader. The tussle between Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel potentially has long-lasting significance, which could yet become the legacy of 2019.

But this battle is echoed by a far-lower-profile version in the midfield. For much of the season, it has been a question of out of sight, out of mind for Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi, whose main achievement before finishing 10th in last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix was being the only driver not cursed with a Williams seat to have failed to score a point.

But even before that breakthrough, there were hints that he is starting to unlock the pace that could make him a Kimi Raikkonen beater.

That may seem a ridiculous assertion given the job Raikkonen has been doing. He has racked up 21 points in six top-10 finishes, which makes Giovinazzi's tally of one point look feeble. But while it's true that Giovinazzi, who started a grand total of three races over 2017-18, has taken a while to shake off the rust in races, his underlying pace has been far more impressive.

Giovinazzi and Raikkonen have each been the faster Alfa Romeo driver three times in the past six races, and the average gap between the pair so far in 2019 is just 0.021 seconds in Raikkonen's favour. And while Giovinazzi qualified 0.013s behind Raikkonen and then followed him home in Austria, there were hints he had a slight edge that was hidden by a couple of tiny errors on his qualifying lap.

In the race, Giovinazzi finished just 0.662s behind Raikkonen on the same strategy, having been five seconds behind after the first eight laps. Given Sundays have been his weaker suit, this demonstrates that he is progressing even though a bad start cost him a couple of places while Raikkonen made it up to fourth on the first lap.

"The issue is that in the last two seasons he did some FP1s [13, for Haas and Sauber], some test days, but nothing can replace the race and the tyre management," says team boss Frederic Vasseur. "He did a very strong job because starting on the softs we were in good positions on the grid but not the best strategy.

"You ask them to manage a little bit and to understand where they have to manage the front, the rear, the entry speed and so on. [In Austria] it was not easy with more than 50C on the track, but he was a bit more conservative than Kimi the first five laps and then he was catching him."

During Giovinazzi's junior single-seater career, there were times when tempering his attacking instinct with the required discipline was a challenge

Austria, which Vasseur describes as marking the real start of the season for Giovinazzi, is significant precisely because of the Italian's struggles. It was easily the most rounded weekend of the season, aided by avoiding the misfortune that has held him back.

In Australia and Canada, damage sustained on the first lap hurt his chances. He's been hit with grid penalties at four races and the tyre-management troubles have often left him on tricky strategies.

France, where he qualified a superb 10th, was also compromised. He had to start on the softs, but was unable to extend that stint as long as he needed to in order to avoid a two-stopper. There have also been mistakes, notably clattering into Robert Kubica's Williams in Monaco.

When going up against a driver as metronomic as Raikkonen, such tribulations are always going to make you look bad. It should be remembered that Giovinazzi's predecessor, Leclerc, had three difficult weekends at the start of last season before his campaign started to come together. It has taken Giovinazzi longer and, given how congested F1's midfield is, tiny shortcomings can make the difference between hero and zero.

Giovinazzi's cause isn't helped by a default aggressive style. During his junior single-seater career, there were times when tempering that attacking instinct with the required discipline was a challenge. Interestingly, it was at the Red Bull Ring in 2014 that Giovinazzi made his major breakthrough in Formula 3 - winning two European Championship races on the road but losing one to a 20s penalty.

That's not to say he's living on his wits and simply attacking mindlessly, but it's perhaps one of the reasons he's taken time to make the small adjustments needed to thrive in F1. And the signs are that he could now have a platform to start to beat Raikkonen more often than not - if he can find that consistency.

Watching Giovinazzi and Raikkonen from trackside and you can see a clear contrast in their default approaches. During final practice in Austria, at the fast right-hander of Turn 6, Raikkonen opted for a more conservative approach to mitigate the understeer that most battle with at that corner. Giovinazzi was more aggressive, culminating in one very attacking turn-in before dialling back. Neither approach is right or wrong.

"The difference is always very small, we are talking about 1-2km/h and two or three metres on the brakes," is Vasseur's summary.

Realistically, Giovinazzi is no Leclerc. But that doesn't mean Giovinazzi can't be an effective performer, and Ferrari had a lot of respect for his simulator work. Unusually, Vettel even credited Giovinazzi directly after his 2018 Canadian GP victory for a "miracle" turnaround following a difficult Friday.

The comparison with Leclerc is unavoidable, if counter-productive. Firstly, in Raikkonen, Giovinazzi has a stronger team-mate than Leclerc's 2018 partner Marcus Ericsson, and secondly it's easy to forget that Leclerc took a little time to settle down and turn in the performances that earned him rapid promotion to Ferrari.

"For Kimi, it's a good teaser" Frederic Vasseur

"It's a long process," says Vasseur. "if you have a look at what we did last year with Charles, it took three or four races to be there. I'm not comparing him with Charles but for a rookie, sometimes you need adjustment."

Much will depend on what Ferrari wants out of Giovinazzi. In a world where it has Vettel and Leclerc on its books, there's no space for him at the works team. Even if Vettel did move on, Giovinazzi still has a long way to go to prove that he'd be the best available choice.

But if he's given another season with Alfa Romeo in the seat where Ferrari has control of selection, which there is every possibility of, then he'll have the chance to build on the progress that he should make over the second half of the year.

Giovinazzi shouldn't be underestimated. His career progress has depended on performance, as even before he was a teenager he relied on landing works drives to continue his karting career as he doesn't come from a family with the wealth of the magnitude required to fund a topline karting or single-seater career these days.

The support of Ricardo Gelael, father of Formula 2 stalwart Sean, was critical to Giovinazzi making it to F3, then played a part, alongside support from Prema co-owner Lawrence Stroll, in him racing in GP2 (pictured above). Without that, he would never have been on Ferrari's radar.

For Alfa Romeo to have experienced campaigner Raikkonen under pressure from Giovinazzi is very positive. Given how close things are in the mid-pack, every last tenth of a second is desperately important and having each side of the garage pressuring the other can only help results.

"For Kimi, it's a good teaser," agrees Vasseur. "From Baku, Antonio is always there matching Kimi. The competition is so tight in the midfield that you need to have this."

After a troubled start, Giovinazzi is starting to prove he can give a world champion something to think about. But the point in Austria needs to be a starting point for the next stride, rather than his peak, if he's to earn himself a long F1 future.

"Antonio had two or three bad weekends in a row when he was matching Kimi in qualifying but always had tough races," said Vasseur after the race in Austria. "Today, he was very solid from the beginning to the end. It's a good starting point for him."