Why the pace of a 'different Ferrari' might be deceptive

Ahead of Friday practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the key question was whether Ferrari could extract the pace from its car that its drivers said was not there in Australia and, if so, where that would put it relative to Mercedes.

A glance at the timesheets suggests something closer to what pre-season testing indicated, with Ferrari six tenths of a second clear - actually twice the kind of gap there appeared to be in testing. While the usual Friday practice caveats apply, this is encouraging for a team that was hopeful it had solved some of the problems that it believed held it back in Melbourne.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff ended the session in no doubt that Ferrari had the edge, and offered a clear explanation of why the pace advantage was so big that it tallies with what we saw from the relative pace of the cars in each sector of the Bahrain circuit.

"You can see an enormous straightline power from the Ferrari, it's where they are making all their gains," Wolff told Sky Sports F1. "Definitely a different Ferrari to what we have seen in Melbourne. I don't know how they are operating it, but in terms of pure pace, definitely more Barcelona than Melbourne."

The single-lap pace, based on performance in the vital evening second practice session, certainly bears this out, with Ferrari six tenths clear of Mercedes.

Single-lap pace

1 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m28.846s
2 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m29.449s
3 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m29.699s
4 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m29.725s
5 Haas (Magnussen), 1m30.000s
6 McLaren (Norris), 1m30.017s
7 Toro Rosso (Kvyat), 1m30.093s
8 Racing Point (Perez), 1m30.716s
9 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m31.129s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m31.904s

It should be noted that this wasn't an orthodox Friday practice for Ferrari. During the crucial evening session, the team opted to throw two sets of soft Pirellis at each driver for two qualifying simulation runs. As Wolff pointed out, this was "unusual".

"We were certainly pushing different engine modes compared to what the others were doing today, so I am expecting a very tough battle tomorrow" Mattia Binotto

But it didn't distort the competitive picture unduly. Comparing Ferrari's first qualifying simulation, completed earlier, on which Vettel set a time of 1m28.942s, to the Mercedes pace means the gap between the two teams closes only from six to five tenths. Still significant.

How much of that is down to Ferrari being more aggressive than Mercedes with its engine modes will only be revealed on Saturday night. And final practice won't give any indication because Ferrari won't have qualifying simulation tyres.

It should, however, be noted that even if Ferrari was running more aggressively than usual the straightline speed advantage is in keeping with the pattern that often emerged last year. Even when Ferrari was faster in 2018 Mercedes often had the edge in the corners, but it was on the straights that Ferrari made big gains in qualifying trim. So it's also possible this pattern has recurred.

"It looks like maybe Ferrari has a tiny edge on us at the moment, but qualifying can be different," was Wolff's conclusion. "We are going to squeeze everything we have like a lemon and hopefully be there. I think it's between us."

As for his opposite number at Ferrari, team principal Mattia Binotto was much happier with progress and confirmed that the car did not have the problems suffered in Australia. Given Vettel and Leclerc have spoken at length about how the car felt superb in testing in Spain but nothing like that in Australia, that's very encouraging for the team. But he did give reason to view the gap to Mercedes with scepticism given the engine modes used.

"I think the delta you may see to the others is not too significant," said Binotto. "I think it is quite obvious, you may see the GPS data, the speed on the straights, we were certainly pushing different engine modes compared to what the others were doing today, so I am expecting a very tough battle tomorrow."

While Binotto emphatically denied that Ferrari had a cooling problem, the fact Ferrari wanted to run more aggressive engine modes suggests that there's some characteristic in such conditions that it wanted to test. The confidence at Ferrari hints that this test might have been successful.

While neither Red Bull driver had an entirely representative run, even with a perfect lap there's no indication Max Verstappen would have been a factor at the front given the team struggled to extract pace from the soft Pirellis.

Perhaps the most startling time was that posted by Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg. Team principal Cyril Abiteboul admitted that Renault needed to raise its game after a patchy Australian GP weekend, and this suggests Renault has the potential to give Haas a run for its money at the front of the midfield - although the team was in an aggressive engine mode and gaining significant time on the straights, which probably distorted its relative pace. Beating Red Bull might be optimistic based on previous form too.

The long runs suggest Mercedes has an advantage of three tenths on the softs. But on the mediums, there's nothing to choose between Vettel and Hamilton

So, as Wolff suggests, it looks like qualifying will come down to a battle between Ferrari and Mercedes. But if Ferrari does have the advantage, even if it's only small, track position remains king even at a circuit that has three DRS zones this year.

Unlike in Melbourne, where the advantage Mercedes had over Ferrari was similar on single-lap and long-run pace, the Friday pace at Sakhir diverged from what we saw over a lap.

Vettel's long running was compromised by a combination of the two soft sets strategy that meant he started race work later than normal and a spin at Turn 2, but Charles Leclerc was able to complete a relatively straightforward run that can be used to gauge Ferrari's pace.

But discarding anomalies, his run of 11 laps came in at an average of 1m35.766s, whereas Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas did the same number of laps at 1m35.577s - an advantage of 0.189s. Hamilton did not run as long, and his run at comparable points was slightly slower than Bottas.

This is how the long-run pace ranking works out, based on counting 10 laps in order to level up the comparison across the field, where available, hence the slight difference to the 11-lap runs mentioned above.

Soft long-run pace (10 laps)

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m35.463s
2 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m35.746s
3 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m35.879s
4 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m35.989s 6 laps
5 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m36.137s
6 Racing Point (Perez), 1m36.550s
7 Haas (Grosjean), 1m36.664s
8 McLaren (Sainz), 1m36.776s 9 laps
9 Williams (Russell), 1m38.072s 8 laps

No usable data for Alfa Romeo

This gives Mercedes an advantage of three tenths on the softs. But on the mediums, comparing the pace of Vettel and Hamilton, there's nothing in it. Based on eight counting laps, Vettel had the slight edge with an average of 1m35.380s compared to Hamilton's 1m35.457s - a gap of 0.077s that is probably too small to be significant.

To support the claim that Red Bull was struggling on the softs Max Verstappen was actually the fastest on medium long-run pace - ahead of the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat. Alex Albon, in the second Toro Rosso, also completed a run that was on course to be quicker than Verstappen's, but it wasn't quite long enough to be included.

Medium long-run pace (8 laps)

1 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m35.167s
2 Toro Rosso (Kvyat), 1m35.349s
3 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m35.380s
4 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m35.457s
5 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m35.743s
6 Haas (Magnussen), 1m36.263s
7 Racing Point (Perez), 1m36.292s
8 Williams (Kubica), 1m37.165s

No usable data for McLaren or Alfa Romeo

Based on soft pace, Mercedes could have a slender advantage, but probably not enough to make an overtaking move stick at this circuit even with the advantage of three DRS zones. That means qualifying will be critical.

All of this means that the picture on Friday in Bahrain - with all the caveats that come with such an analysis of it being based only on the available, limited, data and the fact that teams will make gains by the time qualifying comes round - differs both from pre-season testing and from Australia.

What we can be sure of is that, as expected, Ferrari is not going to be seven tenths off the pace of Mercedes as it was in Melbourne. Friday's single-lap pace suggests a big qualifying advantage but given the engine mode variation it's reasonable to assume things will be much closer on Saturday evening. However, the evidence suggests Ferrari could have an edge.

As for the race, it looks close, perhaps even with Mercedes having a slight advantage based on the soft-tyre pace. And if that soft-run pace gap turns out to reflect the qualifying pace comparison, that means Ferrari will just have halved the Melbourne gap.

All of which makes for a very promising set-up after a Mercedes walkover in the first race of the season. But even if Mercedes still prevails, and it's probably in better shape than the single-lap pace from Friday suggests, it is at least a stronger Ferrari that has turned up in Bahrain.

The question remains though, is it strong enough?