F1: Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, “We are on the right track.”

F1: Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, “We are on the right track.”

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Despite giving up their racing winning position in Melbourne last weekend, Sebastian Vettel, 28 anni, is optimistic about Ferrari’s chances this season, and said that he is impressed by how the car performed compared to last year’s racer.

“Of course we expect more this year,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

“Last year was a bit unknown. I think we were happy to be on the podium after the season that Ferrari had in 2014 and I had in 2014. This year we obviously come with more expectations.

“Naturally, when you finish 2nd in the Constructors you want to challenge for 1st. I think we managed to close that gap more than anyone else so there are plenty of positives.

“At home in Maranello there has been a lot of work going into this car and I think this is the right car that should allow us to put a lot of pressure on these guys.

“We know that the benchmark is high but as I said, we are on the right track, things are coming together.

“All in all, we are a lot closer so plenty of positives.”

Until the race was Red flagged  at Melbourne, Mr. Vettel was leading for Ferrari and might have been expected to have won but for Fernando Alonso’s horrendous crash. But  Mr. Vettel’s place had everything to do with the track positioning bought by his super start and the mediocre ones by the MercedesAMG’s.

The comparison was clouded by the different tire choices made by each team during the race.

Take these things out of the picture and it did appear that the Mercedes retained a performance advantage on the day, but by a smaller amount than in qualifying.

Last year, Ferrari ran their power units conservatively in Melbourne. But from Malaysia onwards through Bahrain and China, they felt confident enough to turn them up, and in those races they were at least on a par with Mercedes AMG for race day horsepower.

In Melbourne this year, Ferrari again was carefully managing their power units during the race.

Kimi Raikkonen in particular could be observed varying the amount of electrical deployment, according to how defensive he needed to be.

Something gave Ferrari concern about being able to run with full deployment for extended periods. It is possible this was connected to Mr. Raikkonen’s turbo issues that subsequently forced him to retire, but MercedesAMG engineers looking at the numbers suspect that Ferrari were running their engines less aggressively than in Barcelona testing.

The word is that this was related to a specific reliability worry Ferrari had over a component and it could be resolved by the next race, then a return to full power in Bahrain could well be enough to allow Ferrari to fight MercedesAMG on pure performance on race day.

A major focus of Ferrari’s attention will be on matching the power MercedesAMG’s have available for short bursts during qualifying.

These extra engine modes are very potent and MercedesAMG development work during the Winter  centered around extending the duration of combustion, thereby moving the detonation threshold yet further back, allowing more power for longer, has allowed them to become even more so.

More than ever in the Hybrid Era, such developments have to be made jointly with the engine department, the fuel supplier and spark plug manufacturer.

Although Ferrari appears to have a car capable of racing the Mercs, a breakthrough in qualifying performance is going to be needed before The Scuderia can control their races from the front, rather than relying on better starts or strategy to get them to the podium.

Yet even if Ferrari fails to make that change this year, if they can regularly challenge the Mercs, the respective dynamics of the driver line-ups of each team might yet offer Ferrari the realistic hope of winning the Championship all around.

Last year the Ferrari was not quite fast enough, this year, it could be.

The Bahrain GP is live on Sky Sports, there are lots of ways you can watch the 2nd race of the season.

The action starts Thursday with the Drivers’ Press Conference live on Sky Sports F1 at 4:00p from the Bahrain International Circuit.

The following day Practice One gets underway at 12:00N, with Sky Sports F1 on air from 11:45a. Practice Two starts at 4:00p Friday, with Sky Sports F1 on air at 3:45p. At 6;00p, it is time for the Team Principals’ Press Conference.

Practice Three will be live on Saturday from 12:45p, with the session starting at 1p.

F1 is set to revert to the Y 2015 qualifying rules in Bahrain and Q1 starts later that day at 4:00p, with Sky Sports F1 live from 3:00p.

The race gets underway at 4:00p on Sunday afternoon, with Sky Sports F1 on air with the track parade, news from the pitlane and more from 2:30p.

Tune in and enjoy the racing this weekend

Have a terrific Easter Holiday weekend.

Paul Ebeling

HeffX-LTN

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