MOTORSPORT: The black horse is prancing again

Ferrari has made its best start to a Formula 1 season for a decade, winning two of the first three races.

And not since Michael Schumacher in 2004, the year of the great German’s record seventh world title, had one Ferrari driver done that. (Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa were the early winners in 2008).

Now the bed-ridden 48-year-old Schumacher’s countryman Sebastian Vettel has achieved it.

Vettel’s switch from Red Bull Racing to the Italian team with the red cars but symbolised by the black prancing horse had at times seemed to have been a mistake, but now it’s looking like a masterstroke.

Still a couple of months short of his 30th birthday, the four-time world champion is in love with F1 again.

“The car was like a dream to drive today,” Vettel said after his latest victory, the 44th of his career and third in Bahrain.

“I felt right from the beginning that we had the speed to win.

“The lap back to the pits was so sweet.”

Combined with Ferrari’s strategy, again decisively pitting him early for his first tyre change as it did it Melbourne three weeks earlier, Vettel relegated Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to second and third places.

Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo had qualified one place above his station – fourth, but still more than ¾ of a second off pole position – and thought he was on for a podium, perhaps even a win, despite being overtaken by Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen on the opening lap, but in the end he struggled with his tyres.

Carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo finished fifth, almost 40 seconds behind Vettel and nearly 17 seconds behind the other Ferrari, that of fourth-placed Kimi Raikkonen. After his horror start to the season in Melbourne, Ricciardo importantly has narrowed the points gap to Verstappen to just three.

Mercedes, so dominant for the first three years of this era of 1.6-litre V6 hybrid power units, is on the back foot against Ferrari, even if its W08 car still has an edge on the scuderia’s SF70H. Hamilton’s fastest lap in the Bahrain race was more than a second better than Vettel’s. (Raikkonen and Ricciardo’s fastest laps also bettered Vettel).

The Ferrari treats its tyres better than the Merc and the crew from Maranello is outsmarting their Merc counterparts on strategy.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said the Bahrain result “reminded us that we are in a very different competitive situation this year”.

“Today was another reminder that we need to get everything right in order to deliver,” Wolff said.

“Ultimately, this was a day of marginal losses which cost us the win – however, as we saw particularly with Lewis, the pace was there in the car at the times when we were able to extract it.”

Hamilton’s chances were not helped in Bahrain by a five-second penalty for holding up Ricciardo on entry to the pits.

That penalty left the triple champion too big a deficit to Vettel to haul in over the final laps.

Bottas had qualified on pole position for the first time, but on the grid the Merc boys gave him too much pressure in his tyres, preventing him opening a gap on Vettel, who made his way past Hamilton at the first turn.

Vettel said it had been important to “upset” the Merc pair at the start – “not allow them to get in front and pull away and do their thing”.

After a safety car intervention because of a crash involving Williams’ Canadian rookie Lance Stroll and Toro Rosso’s Spaniard Carlos Sainz Junior, Vettel had both the Mercs behind him and they spent the rest of the race playing catch-up.

Twice Bottas had to accede to team orders to let Hamilton by as he had the better chance of overhauling Vettel.

But it was not to be, and Vettel took a seven-point lead over Hamilton in the drivers’ world championship and Ferrari, despite Raikkonen’s generally lacklustre performances this year, a three-point advantage over Mercedes in the constructors’ standings.

“Today's victory was an important one, achieved thanks to the great efforts of all the guys at the track and back in Maranello,” Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said.

“For the whole weekend the team demonstrated courage, determination and a little bit of madness. This is all part of our DNA, characteristics which 70 years ago saw the birth of Ferrari.

“The SF70H proved itself to be strong in the conditions at a track which requires above all power and good traction.

“The tyres worked very well, which allowed us to fully exploit our very good strategy.”
Ricciardo’s ‘race of two halves’
Red Bull Racing has not been on the podium in Bahrain in the hybrid era, yet Daniel Ricciardo had thoughts of being up there this time, perhaps even on the top step.

Verstappen overtook him at the start but crashed early with a rear brake failure.

For Ricciardo it turned out to be “a race of two halves really”.

“At the beginning I genuinely thought we had a chance to win,” he said.

“That stint was looking very competitive and I could see Valtteri was struggling.

“I was at the tail end of the front pack and I could see everyone else in front of me. They were sliding and looked like they were struggling more.

“It was quite easy for me to stay there and I was looking after my tyres, so at that point I was thinking it could be on, not only for a podium but for a win.

“The safety car worked for me in that we jumped up to third, but it wasn’t so good for our tyres and that’s where we lost a lot of ground.

“Even once we settled into a pace and the chaos settled we fell back and I was struggling with grip at the front and rear.

“We never really got that (soft-compound) tyre working for us.”

Belgian youngster Stoffel Vandoorne didn’t even get to start in one of the MCL32s in front of the Bahrainis who half-own McLaren.

Alonso wasn’t running at the finish, even though he was classified as the 14th and last finisher, and he complained over his radio that “I’ve never raced with less power in my life”.

Honda had a succession of failures and replacement of parts in its power unit throughout the weekend.

"It is something around the bearings, it was sticking,” Honda's motorsport chief Yusuke Hasegawa said.

“It happened (several) times here, which is very unfortunate.”

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said: “Well, what can I say? Fernando failed to finish, and Stoffel failed even to start.

“So today was a bad day for McLaren-Honda. There’s no point pretending otherwise.

“Stoffel’s weekend went from bad to worse when, on the parade lap, his power unit suffered a water-pressure issue, having already sustained MGU-H (motor generator unit – heat) damage on Friday.

“As a result of today’s failure, we had no choice but to abort his start.

“Fernando drove his usual gutsy race, driving the wheels off his MCL32 despite its straight-line speed deficiency, until he felt something wrong on lap 55.

“In light of all the problems we’d already had this weekend, we then agreed to retire his car. We’ll now investigate what that problem was.

“We’re disappointed to have put up such a disappointing performance for our Bahraini hosts.”

McLaren is bringing back 2009 world champion Jenson Button for a one-off start in place of Alonso at Monaco in late May, after the Russian and Spanish GPs.

Formula 1 World Championship driver standings after three of 20 rounds – 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Ferrari) 68 points; 2. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 61; 3. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Mercedes) 38; 4. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Ferrari) 34; 5. Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Red Bull-Renault) 25; 6. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 22; 7. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Williams-Mercedes) 16; 8. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Force India-Mercedes) 14; 9. Carlos Sainz Junior (Spain, Toro Rosso-Renault) 10; 10. Romain Grosjean (France, Haas-Ferrari) 4; 11. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark, Haas-Ferrari) 4; 12. Esteban Ocon (France, Force India-Mercedes) 3; 13. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Renault) 2; 14. Daniil Kvyat (Russia, Toro Rosso-Renault) 2.

F1 constructor standings – 1. Ferrari 102 points; 2. Mercedes 99; 3. Red Bull-Renault 47; 4. Force India-Mercedes 17; 5. Williams-Mercedes 16; 6. Toro Rosso-Renault 12; 7. Haas-Ferrari 8; 8. Renault 2.

Modest F3 start for Aussie rising star
Fifth place was Australian youngster Joey Mawson’s best finish in the three races that comprised the opening round of the European Formula 3 Championship at Britain’s Silverstone circuit.

That came in the final race of the round, after eighth and 11th-placed finishes in the early two.

Mawson is seventh on the points table with 14 – two points and two places ahead of Michael Schumacher’s teenage son, Mick, who Mawson beat to last year’s German F4 title.

Sweden’s Joel Eriksson leads the series with 55 points from British drivers Callum Ilott and Lando Norris on 43 and 42 respectively.

Harrison Newey, son of F1’s most successful car designer Adrian Newey of Red Bull Racing, has 11 points and Pedro Piquet, a son of Brazilian triple F1 world champion Nelson Piquet, only two driving for the same Van Amersfoort Racing as Mawson.

“Over the whole weekend we struggled as a team with the pace, but I’m quite satisfied that I got the most out of the car that I could have,” Mawson said.

“To record a top-five result in my first weekend as a rookie in F3 is very satisfying, but we need to unlock the key to the outright speed across all three races.

“We didn’t go backwards in the races and, if it wasn’t for tyre degradation in race two, I would have been able to get three top 10 finishes.

“However, we didn’t have the pace of the frontrunners and we’ll be working hard to analyse the data over the next two weeks before Monza [in Italy] to improve.”
Toyota gets it done in the end
As expected, Toyota won the opening round of the World Endurance Championship for Le Mans sports cars at Silverstone – but only after a stiffer than anticipated challenge from Porsche.

Toyota’s two high-downforce TS050 Hybrids had the pace over Porsche’s 919 Hybrids in dry conditions, but rain showers and caution periods kept the pair of Porsches in contention.

The lead Porsche took on only fuel at its last stop, while the sole remaining Toyota – after the other was crashed by Argentinean newcomer and triple world touring car champion Jose Maria Lopez – took four fresh tyres.

Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi then reeled in the Porsche at a second a lap and took the lead with 12 minutes of the six-hour race left.
Buemi was partnered by Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima and Britain’s Anthony Davidson.

The second-placed Porsche was driven by New Zealanders Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber, the latter having replaced Australia’s retired Mark Webber this season, and German Timo Bernhard.

The manufacturers are only allowed two, rather than three, variations of their aerodynamic kits this season and Porsche opted to go with its low-downforce configuration more suited to Le Mans in June, while Toyota was intent on winning the first WEC round.

The other Porsche 919 – driven by Switzerland’s Neel Jani, Germany’s Andre Lotterer and Britain’s Nick Tandy – was third.
Ford took the GT honours, despite a problematic door that wanted to keep opening on the Chip Ganassi-run car shared by Brits Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell with Brazilian Pipo Derani.