Why Ferrari's turnaround is difficult to explain

Looking at the United States Grand Prix, it's clear Ferrari has once again found the performance light switch and flicked it to 'on'.

From the last two races at Austin and Suzuka, which are fairly similar tracks with fast, high-speed sweeping sections, reasonably long straights and the odd twisty bit that requires decent traction, you would say the order of merit for these circuits should be similar.

Interestingly, Ferrari's big advantage on the straights in qualifying, which seemed to go missing in recent races - or at least wasn't strong enough to get it close to Mercedes - seemed to be back.

To compare performance, I have taken each team's fastest lap of the weekend and converted it into a percentage. That way you can compare the two tracks and each team's relative competitiveness for the past two races.

Teams' performance at the last two F1 races

Comparing the performance change between the Japanese and US GPs

So what does this tell us? Well, Red Bull lost Max Verstappen to a wishbone failure in Q1, so if he had been running he might well have had a little advantage over Daniel Ricciardo and therefore Red Bull would have been quicker.

Toro Rosso, because of its grid penalties didn't bother running in Q2 so its performance drop off is understandable. Renault had a torrid time in Japan, so no wonder it improved at Austin.

McLaren and Williams once again didn't progress through from Q1, so are fighting their own performance more than looking at anyone else.

Although Ferrari is prone to making a few mistakes, when push came to shove in qualifying its general performance over the Austin weekend in the dry was pretty good

But if we look at the rest - Force India, Haas and Sauber - compared to Mercedes, they are all just about the same relative performance. All except for Ferrari, which surprised surprised us all and probably even itself by being right back in the fight.

Ferrari's performance swing is over half a percent. It suddenly disappeared in Singapore and it has just as suddenly come back again four races later at Austin. Half a percent doesn't sound much, but in reality for a top team that is right there at the front it is about six months of good positive development, so to me for it to just switch on and off is very difficult to explain.

Ferrari brought two different development floors to the last two races but neither of them have been seen on race day, so I wouldn't say its recovery has been from positive developments in the aerodynamic area. Sebastian Vettel has suggested going backwards on development is what has helped, so clearly Ferrari has recently gone in the wrong direction.

Although Ferrari is prone to making a few mistakes, when push came to shove in qualifying its general performance over the Austin weekend in the dry was pretty good. Ferrari was one-two in practice three, so it went into qualifying in a positive frame of mind, and for Vettel to end up only 0.067-seconds slower than Hamilton shows that performance-wise Ferrari is right in there.

And in the race, just as at Spa, the Mercedes blistered its rear tyres and this time it allowed Kimi Raikkonen to take his first win after a dry spell of 111 races. Hamilton had to two-stop to Raikkonen's one-stop, but that was because of the Mercedes tyre problems.

The thing that didn't help was Pirelli's late instructions to increase the rear tyre pressures by 1.5 psi, but that was the same for everyone so if it had really been the problem I'm sure other teams would also have suffered.

Vettel again threw it all away with another 'mistake' when he spun battling Ricciardo on the first lap. In the end he managed to salvage fourth near the end of the race when Bottas was struggling for rear grip, but even still getting a three-place grid penalty for not slowing down enough for a red flag in practice and then spinning in the race shows he just hasn't learned from his mistakes this year.

It must be even more difficult to take when his team-mate went on to win. Raikkonen showed that Ferrari had the race pace and tyre durability, and if he had been at the front it could have been Vettel's win, which again could have had a major influence in the championship.

But on top of all that, credit where credit is due: Max Verstappen, 18th on the grid to second using a reverse-compound tyre strategy just shows that if you want it you can get it. He drove a fantastic race and if Honda comes up with the goods for next year he will be major championship contender.

While the race was a dramatic one, there's still the wider problems for Formula 1 and the FIA has at last issued the technical regulations for 2019. Unless you have a spare week or two at your disposal, I wouldn't bother looking them up on the FIA website - the rules are not the simplest thing to understand unless you basically sit down and try to draw out a car.

I suppose it's the F1 way - why make it simple when you can make it complicated?
Basically, the front wing is wider with much reduced end plate complexity. The front wing elements are now limited to a maximum of five.

As I have often said, the last time a driver sees his own front wing is when he gets in the car, making it wider with more of it hidden by the front tyre doesn't sound like a positive thing to me.

Some areas in the regulations that also need looking at are the power unit grid penalties - they ruin racing

I suppose they might just be a little cheaper to replace, but by being that bit wider you will definitely have to replace more of them. For a simple mistake like touching a front wing against someone's rear tyre on the first lap, that not only ruins the race for the drivers but also for the fans.

The allowable bargeboard area has been reduced a little bit to minimise the outwash airflow effect from its trailing edge. It's nothing dramatic, but it is hoped - together with the front wing endplate changes - that the leading car will produce less turbulence allowing the following car to run closer.

Other changes in front and rear wing heights are just to allow the teams to aerodynamically balance the car and, in the rear wing case, to improve rear vision - something that has needed to be addressed for a long time.

Personally, I don't see the changes making much of a difference to the turbulence the leading car produces. Open-wheeled cars have always created turbulence and over the last two years with these wider tyres that has just got worse.

Interestingly, it is the cars like Mercedes, which produce the higher levels of downforce, that lose most when they are in traffic. At Austin, Hamilton caught Verstappen at around a second a lap but when on his tail could do nothing about passing him.

So getting rid of all those aerodynamic performance enhancing front wing endplate turning vanes might just help the following car to not lose so much downforce. We can only hope that something within the changes has an effect.

Some areas in the regulations that also need looking at are the power unit grid penalties. They ruin racing. The teams need more power units available for them to use at the tracks.

It won't change the budgets because currently these extra power units are being run to death on the dynos so change all that and put a maximum number of, let's say, crankshafts and perhaps a few other large power unit components that a manufacturer can make in any one season and allow the teams and drivers at least five units per season for circuit use. Three power units just doesn't work.

And while I am on it, the wet tyre regulations with only one set of intermediates being replaced after Friday running is another simple rule that can be altered very easily. But again, F1 doesn't bother.

I remember when I was working for the BBC, we had a very wet weekend at Silverstone and I was very vocal on air about something being done. Nothing has been done to change this and the teams and drivers would have run more last weekend without the wet and intermediate tyre limitation.

The battle at the front in the US GP perhaps shows that if you have less practice time, the race becomes more of a lottery.

The teams, especially the big ones, have large teams of people back at base working on simulation tools overnight on the Friday to optimise car performance, but to do that effectively they need the data from dry running.

At Austin, they didn't get that as both Friday practice sessions were wet, so it meant they went into this race a bit on the back foot.

"With Friday being washed out we were blind to the problems we experienced," said Mercedes technical director James Allison. "They were cruelly exposed and they led to the disappointing outcome."

It might just be worth considering restricting the access teams get to performance data over a race weekend

Because of this, you could argue it would be better to have a two-day F1 weekend to create more unpredictable racing. But this would reduce the running time for the spectators and viewers at home. What's more, if it became the standard, the big teams would just spend their way to coping with any new schedule and we'd end up in the same place.

To achieve this sort of situation more regularly and get the teams thinking on their feet there is a much better way to do it. If they only had instant access to reliability and safety data, with the rest of the performance data locked away until the chequered flag was waved on Sunday, it would mean the driver plays a bigger role in car set-up.

The teams wouldn't be prevented from understanding the car, as you would get the data after the race for in-depth analysis. It would just make it more difficult in the short term.
It might just be worth considering restricting performance data analysis and combining that with the Saturday race format I recently suggested. This isn't artificial, it would be the same for everyone and would make the racing purer.

If you watched the race, it wasn't only us that enjoyed seeing Max come for 18th to second - he was pretty happy with his performance as well. Lewis, starting from pole and ending up third was just that bit less jubilant, but he enjoyed the fact it was a close battle.

Even Hamilton has suggested a few 'super weekends' to experiment with race formats. He is right to suggest that but I don't think it should be done as a test this year. He may win the championship in Mexico, so some would say that after that F1 could run one weekend with a different format to see how it all goes.

But as Ross Brawn has pointed out, the problem is that it's not just about the series. There are 18 other drivers and eight other teams fighting for championship positions and the prize money that comes from it, so it's correct that the format stays the same for the rest of the year.