Why Racing Point’s 'real' pace should scare Red Bull and Ferrari

Finally, Formula 1 is back. After a seven-month wait thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the latest racing chapter in the championship's history is underway. The opening practice sessions for this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix are in the books.

Little had changed on the driver line-up front over the extended off-season, with just Nicholas Latifi replacing Robert Kubica at Williams and Esteban Ocon taking Nico Hulkenberg's Renault seat the only differences. And based on the headline results of the first two of four 2020 Friday practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring, little has changed in the form at the front of the grid. Mercedes is still the benchmark, and by some margin.

But, digging into the times after Lewis Hamilton topped FP2 on Friday afternoon and with the usual caveats all applying, there is a fascinating scrap behind, which could yet cause the six-time world champion squad, resplendent in its new colour scheme, a headache.

Ultimately, Mercedes is quickest on all fronts, with Hamilton leading team-mate Valtteri Bottas in both practices. And in both sessions, the gap between the fastest Mercedes and the next quickest car - Red Bull's Max Verstappen in FP1 and Racing Point's Sergio Perez in FP2 - was just over 0.6s.

That's a massive gap on raw pace, with Bottas at least shaving 0.159s from Hamilton's 0.356's first practice advantage in FP2, closing the gap to 0.197s and leaving hopes of some interest in the fight for the win if it boils down to an intra-team battle.

Ferrari fans may have been despairing at the team's downbeat performance in testing, its confirmation that it needed to introduce wholesale upgrades for the Hungarian Grand Prix - race three on the new calendar - and Charles Leclerc saying he is "99%" sure the team will have a tougher 2020 compared to 2019. But there is some hope it can live with Mercedes in the early stages on Sunday based on Sebastian Vettel's time on the soft rubber, which the top teams will more than likely start the race on.

Looking at the table below, there is almost nothing in the averages (which take into account and remove various anomalous times) between Vettel and Bottas on very similar stint lengths on the red-walled tyres. The problem for Ferrari is that Racing Point's Sergio Perez beat Vettel to third place in the FP2 qualifying simulations.

Soft tyre comparison

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m08.715, 10 laps
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m08.800s, 9 laps
3 Racing Point (Perez), 1m09.213s, 14 laps
4 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m09.263s, 11 laps
5 Renault (Ocon), 1m09.467s, 15 laps
6 McLaren (Sainz), 1m09.512s, 13 laps
7 AlphaTauri (Gasly), 1m09.728s, 13 laps
8 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m09.771s, 14 laps
9 Haas (Magnussen), 1m10.409s, 11 laps
Williams, N/A

So, if Ferrari can head the controversial Racing Point RP20s in qualifying, it looks like it can at least stay with Mercedes in the opening stages. If it can get in amongst the Mercedes cars, then we will possibly have a multi-team fight for victory.

Unfortunately, Ferrari didn't do any long running on the medium tyres, opting instead to focus on the hards, with Charles Leclerc's 11-lap stint averaging on the white-walled tyres at 1m09.013s (the next best was Renault's Ocon on 1m09.367s), so it's difficult to say where it might fare compared to Mercedes once they come into get rid of the softs in the race.

Racing Point also appears to be a serious thorn in Red Bull's hoof. Judging by the averages on the softs above and the mediums below, the pink-liveried team is ahead of the home team. Not by much, but it looks to be just in front at this stage: especially as Verstappen wound up 0.994s adrift of the top spot in eighth place in FP2. But there's a caveat here, as he says front wing damage cost him on his qualifying simulation run.

It's worth point out as ever that we don't know what fuel loads the drivers have onboard during practice, or what engine modes their cars are set in. And it remains entirely possible the crack engineers at any team will find a way to transform Friday woe into Sunday triumph.

Racing Point fans should be very encouraged, not just by the RP20's pace in all states on Friday, but because Perez's stints on both softs and mediums were at the higher end in terms of lap total, which means he at least ran with a likely heavy fuel load. Plus, it seems Racing Point was firmly clear of the midfield today, as winter testing suggested.

Racing Point also appears to be a serious thorn in Red Bull's hoof. Judging by the averages on the softs above and the mediums below, the pink-liveried team is ahead of the home team

Based on these calculations, Red Bull has work to do - which is somewhat surprising given it was thought to be the closest challenger to Mercedes based on the two tests at Barcelona back in February's other lifetime.

That may well still be the case, but it was certainly a trying first day of the season for Red Bull, as Verstappen and Alex Albon - who appears to be roughly half a second off his team-mate's pace in the long-run averages on both the soft and medium - had spins at the opening corner in FP1 and FP2 respectively. This was also an issue for the RB16 in testing.

Medium tyre comparison

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m08.261s, 9 laps
2 Racing Point (Perez), 1m08.831s, 17 laps
3 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m08.963s, 19 laps
4 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m09.115s, 17 laps
5 McLaren (Norris), 1m09.476s, 10 laps
6 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m09.511s, 12 laps
7 Williams (Russell), 1m09.686s, 11 laps
8 Haas (Magnussen), 1m10.056s, 14 laps
Ferrari N/A
AlphaTauri N/A

In the midfield, it appears as if there are three distinct groups based on Friday's times. Renault looks to have the edge of McLaren - a rivalry which now has added spice thanks to Daniel Ricciardo's decision to jump ship to the British squad before even turning a wheel at a race event in 2020.

On both the softs and the mediums, the Renault was a sniff ahead today, with its advantage bigger on the harder rubber of those two tyre compounds. Ricciardo also edged Lando Norris in the qualifying simulations to take fifth in the FP2 standings, but the McLarens had had the edge in FP1.

The next midfield pair to follow in the order seems to be the similarly-named and largely similarly-liveried AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo squads, with the Red Bull-backed team edging it in the FP2 times. Daniil Kvyat was 12th for AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi was 14th.

AlphaTauri snipped ahead in the soft tyre averages, with Pierre Gasly seemingly edging Giovinazzi there, but like Ferrari AlphaTauri didn't run on the mediums. Gasly's best stint on the hards averaged at 1m09.799s, behind Leclerc and Ocon, but well clear of Latifi's 1m10.702s for Williams.

At the tail of the field seemingly comes Williams and Haas, which will likely be a major boost to the former - the clear tailender in 2019 - and a disappointment for the latter if this proves to be the case in the race.

Haas' pace in winter testing was somewhat of an unknown, as it did look quick on occasion, but its average time compared to Williams on the mediums at the Red Bull Ring today is a real eye-opener. Williams did not do any lengthy running on the softs, so it is left out of our comparison above.

Finally, (again because it is such a joyful statement) Formula 1 is back.

It seems then that once again neutral fans will be hoping Mercedes slips up in qualifying or the race, unless its Class A rivals can turn things around based on their own post-practice assessments.

But there's so still much intrigue given there is indeed much scope for things to look different and Mercedes' previous recent form in Austria isn't good. Plus, a certain shade of pink is apparently set to cause havoc for those in red, as well as those wearing the home team's colours.