Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Albert Park, 2015

Mercedes strong but Vettel has “best Friday” at Ferrari

2015 Australian Grand Prix Friday practice analysis

13th March 2015, 15:2713th March 2015, 17:04 | Written by Keith Collantine

The ominous news for Mercedes’ rivals at the end of the first day of official practice for the 2015 season is that they appear to be further ahead than they were 12 months ago.

Rewind to the first Friday of 2014 and Mercedes’ closest rivals were half a second behind, and six of their rivals had lapped within a second and a half of their quickest time. Today the next-best team was seven tenths of a second slower, and only one other team lapped within a second and a half of the W06’s benchmark.

And for all that, pace-setter Nico Rosberg referred to how he still had to “nail the set-up” for this weekend and Lewis Hamilton, who was a tenth of a second slower, confessed to being “not 100% comfortable with the car”.

Perhaps the greatest surprise was that none of Mercedes’ customer teams had a particularly strong day. Williams are likely to be more competitive than they appear: Felipe Massa was unable to do a soft-tyre run as a water leak kept him out of Q2, so we have only Valterri Bottas’s lap to go on, and he believes there is quite a bit more pace to find over a single lap.

Similarly Nico Hulkenberg was dissatisfied with Force India’s single-lap performance. Lotus, meanwhile, had problems with Grosjean’s car in the first session and Maldonado’s in the second.

However Ferrari’s progress continues to give Sebastian Vettel cause for cheer. The car is visibly more compliant, notably in the high-speed turns 11 and 12, and it looked good on its long runs too.

But it’s the reliability which Vettel is especially pleased by. “I can’t think of such a trouble-free Friday session in a long time,” he said in a pointed reference to his former team.

Daniel Ricciardo experienced exactly the kind of frustrating day Vettel had several of last year, completing just nine laps in front of his home crowd. He sat out second practice after analysis of his car’s lubricants indicated his a potential engine problem.

That left it to Toro Rosso to lead the way for Red Bull, notably Carlos Sainz Jnr who having never visited Australia before is well on his way to completing two races distances before Sunday. The STR10 looks much better – in both senses – since its aerodynamic upgrade at the end of testing. Max Verstappen, however, missed much of the second session with a battery problem.

None of this bodes well for McLaren, however, who are at risk of being eliminated in the first round of qualifying even given that the two Manor cars are unlikely to make the cut even if they are completed in time.

Saturday is still forecast to bring much warmer conditions for qualifying, followed by evening rain which could drastically alter the circuit’s grip characteristics ahead of the race. Expect to see the gaps close up in the battle to be ‘best of the rest’ behind the Mercedes as we get our first look at just how far ahead they are – and what gains Ferrari might have made.

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2015drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21
Lewis Hamilton	92.233	92.047	92.82	100.552	92.272	95.631	92.573	92.958
Nico Rosberg	93.519	91.769	92.833	91.829	92.18	92.195	92.005	96.85	92.353	92.409
Daniil Kvyat	93.872	93.674	93.715	94.474	93.842	93.949	94.267	99.821	93.873	95.103	93.946	93.973	93.661	94.214	94.008
Valtteri Bottas	93.435	92.812	93.1	92.771	94.364	92.934	92.36	92.27	92.809	93.515	93.555	93.748	93.725
Sebastian Vettel	92.861	98.08	94.648	92.904	92.86	93.169	92.52	92.682	93.24	92.774	92.789	92.685	92.681	92.546	92.482	92.623	93.33	93.45
Kimi Raikkonen	92.716	92.43	92.616	92.679	92.41	92.541	92.523	92.554	92.102	92.331	92.109	91.966	91.885	92.187	92.078	92.521
Kevin Magnussen	93.289	101.373
Jenson Button	96.779	96.059	95.943	97.123	96.111	98.073
Nico Hulkenberg	94.582	94.196	94.485	94.088	94.644	94.132	94.195	94.09	94.478	94.272	94.219	94.252	94.62	95.238	94.741	94.413	94.25	94.42
Sergio Perez	94.634	94.713	94.633	94.841	94.516	95.121	95.487	94.364	94.311	94.272	94.613	94.45	94.367
Max Verstappen	93.622	102.692	91.395
Carlos Sainz Jnr	93.625	93.736	93.484	93.443	100.58	94.768	93.304	93.875	95.182	96.057	94.617	95	94.545	94.11	94.14	93.864	93.977	94.025
Romain Grosjean	93.708	93.555	92.89	92.921	93.164	93.421	93.091	93.983	98.182	92.818	93.276	94.191	101.61	93.629	93.772	93.684	93.617	93.773	94.182	94.557
Pastor Maldonado	91.786	95.973	93.572	99.311	92.56
Marcus Ericsson	94.692	96.556	93.398	92.539	92.431	92.303	92.632
Felipe Nasr	94.52	93.836	94.026	93.934	93.483	93.397	94.192	96.976	94.332	94.032	93.852	108.364

Complete practice times

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’29.557	1’27.697	48
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’29.586	1’27.797	44
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’31.029	1’28.412	46
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1’31.310	1’28.842	47
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1’30.748	1’29.265	52
6	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull-Renault	1’32.073	1’30.016	45
7	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso-Renault	1’31.014	1’30.071	73
8	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	1’31.451	1’30.104	33
9	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	2’17.782	1’30.205	42
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’32.261	1’30.473	49
11	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari		1’30.755	11
12	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1’32.247	1’30.980	54
13	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	1’31.067	1’31.395	37
14	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1’31.188		19
15	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1’34.542	1’31.387	27
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	1’31.570		9
17	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari		1’32.303	14
18	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Honda	1’34.785	1’33.289	11

2015 Australian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine

Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
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47 comments on “Mercedes strong but Vettel has “best Friday” at Ferrari”

Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
13th March 2015, 15:34
What are the chances of Vettel experiencing one of those “Happy Fridays” the team usually had in recent years? good on Friday, nowhere to be seen on Saturday.
I admit the team looks in better shape, but hold your horses.
1. Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
  13th March 2015, 15:37
  Also, the field looks a lot more spread out… hope that’s not the case tomorrow !
2. celeste (@celeste)
  13th March 2015, 15:43
  Let the kid be happy… we will have time for reality on sunday…when I´m sure everybody will said how boring F1 is now that Mercedes is so dominant and how Alonso will be even more faster in a Mercedes than Rosberg and Hamilton
3. curmudgeon
  13th March 2015, 15:47
  @fer-no65 Mercedes, Bottas, Kimi, etc were on softs. Vettel was on mediums. How much fuel they carried remains, as always, a mystery. It would be interesting if Ferrari got smart and decided that Friday was not for hero runs.
  1. DR
    13th March 2015, 22:21
    @CURMUDGEON – No Vet was on softs when he posted his fastest time.
4. Vinnie Jones (@visi)
  13th March 2015, 16:43
  You mean “Friday Flattery & Raceday Misery”?!
  Yeah – been there, seen it.
5. pastaman (@)
  13th March 2015, 21:26
  They’re talking more about the reliability than performance. Hold your own horses.
6. Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
  14th March 2015, 2:40
  Yes but you can clearly see that the best chassis are Mercedes and then RBR and Ferrari. The Merc is widely off balance but it’s really quick, the Ferrari looks quite sorted setup wise, and the RBR looks extremely poor in terms of drivability it may be even worse than the Honda engine in that regard who knows, Button hasn’t complained of their own driveability. I was shocking to see how easily people were getting by the Mchonda on the straights but I still believe the chassis on par with the 2nd tier of Ferrari and RBR.
Ivan (@masaivan)
13th March 2015, 15:36
Waiting to see speed trap…
1. Key (@key75)
  13th March 2015, 15:42
  https://twitter.com/F1/status/576278085772926976
  1. Beto (@chebeto0)
    13th March 2015, 18:32
    Wow, 2 Ferrari powered cars in the top 3 of the speed trap. Either Sauber and Ferrari are very drag efficient or that Ferrari PU made a huge step forward over the winter. Maybe now only about 5% deficit to the Mercedes PU?
    1. celeste (@celeste)
      13th March 2015, 20:13
      I maybe mistaked, but Ferrari almost always has great speed trap record, don´t they?
      1. hoshino (@hoshino)
        14th March 2015, 1:00
        Even before last year Mercedes PU dominance it usually were FI and Williams (and occasionally – Toro Rosso) who topped the speed lists. Ferrari used to be in the middle. And even for Schumi-Brawn era at Ferrari, as far as I can remember, BMW-Williams were fastest on the straights.
Vlad Badelita (@toranagah)
13th March 2015, 15:36
Perhaps the greatest surprise was that none of Mercedes’ customer teams had a particularly strong day.
I think that’s a typo. Unless one team did actually have a strong day but I don’t reckon they have.
1. uan (@uan)
  13th March 2015, 15:48
  It’s not that much of a surprise. Mercedes dominance is only partially due to the engine – a lot of it is the chassis and aero, which at the minimum is the equal of RBR and possibly even better. Look at the top speed of both Rosberg and Kyvat (315.1), yet there’s over 2 seconds between them – though part of that could still be in the engine, but not all of it.
  1. PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
    13th March 2015, 16:27
    @uan Why is there still this magical assumption the Merc chassis is worse than that of RB? Plenty of mid corner and exit speeds suggest otherwise.
    1. uan
      13th March 2015, 17:21
      @xtwl
      “Why is there still this magical assumption the Merc chassis is worse than that of RB?”
      Isn’t that basically what I just said? “Mercedes dominance is only partially due to the engine – a lot of it is the chassis and aero, which at the minimum is the equal of RBR and possibly even better.”
      1. PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
        13th March 2015, 17:40
        which at the minimum is the equal of RBR and possibly even better
        My apologies. I read that sentence as you were not really convinced it was all that much better or at best equal.
      2. uan
        13th March 2015, 19:59
        no worries, I could have been clearer too. I don’t really have the knowledge to say Merc is much better compared to RBR with chassis and aero, but all signs point to that being the case. I do think it’s a bit unfair that Merc doesn’t get the credit they deserve for that chassis.
    2. David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
      13th March 2015, 17:27
      @xtwl Well, probably because even though it a descendant of the ~~2009 Honda~~ BGP001 It wasn’t exactly great in 2010-2012(/13)…
      1. uan
        13th March 2015, 20:01
        @davidnotcoulthard I think the Merc chassis was really close in 2013. It was a bit too hard on the tires. So they would nail it in qualifying but then their tires would fall of too quickly in the race.
MattDS (@mattds)
13th March 2015, 15:50
@keithcollantine I don’t really think McLaren is at risk of being eliminated in qualifying, at least not on pace. Button’s 1:31.3 would be the cutoff time for a fastest time of 1:25.4 in Q1 and there’s no way that time will be set. I don’t even expect the Mercs to reach that time in Q3.
1. Matthew Bees
  13th March 2015, 16:00
  I think that 1:25 laptime is in range, still more rubber to go down – lets wait and see what happens! McLaren won’t fall foul of the 107% rule, but I don’t see them progressing to Q2 at this rate
  1. MattDS (@mattds)
    13th March 2015, 16:46
    I’m expecting a pole time around 1:26.5-1:27. Also the Mercs will use the slower primes in Q1.
2. MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
  13th March 2015, 16:03
  @mattds I think Keith means that they are likely not to make it to the second round of qualifying. I don’t think there’s any danger of them failing to make the 107% cutoff, unless they have major problems. In which case they’d still qualify on the basis of the FP times.
  1. MattDS (@mattds)
    13th March 2015, 16:43
    @mazdachris yes, I totally misread that. Thanks.
yeah1111
13th March 2015, 15:51
What set of tyres were the top ten on ?
1. DR
  13th March 2015, 22:23
  Pretty much everyone did a soft tyre run then some longer runs on the medium with race fuel loads ;-)
Matthew Bees
13th March 2015, 15:58
Raikkonen’s long run pace of 16 laps looks quite promising, obviously dependent on the fuel load he was running on compared to Mercedes and Williams. Does anyone know if Ferrari have improved their ERS, as it looks like they are able to keep their charge at optimum levels – given Kimi didn’t do an “off lap”
1. Key (@key75)
  13th March 2015, 16:01
  Yep! Allison talk about that during the lauch of the car and I saw some interviews also talking about that.
  Ahhh, and also in Jerez David Croft talked with the press guy from Ferrari about that and he told him “We won’t get deep into that but it’s working fine” like they were hiding something.
  1. Key (@key75)
    13th March 2015, 16:02
    In Barcelona*
  2. Matthew Bees
    13th March 2015, 16:08
    @Key Thanks! It was a bad part of their race pace last year, whilst qualifying they usually did better i.e. 1 lap run.
2. jim
  13th March 2015, 17:18
  Have to agree with you, the consistency of Kimi’s lap times in that stint is quite telling (and good).
  I think it also shows that the Mercedes cars are devastatingly quick – if they’re reliable too and still fuel efficient, there will be no-one even close.
  1. DR
    13th March 2015, 22:24
    well Kimi WAS close to Nico’s longer run pace, separated by not even a tenth on a few laps well into the stint……Not saying he will beat the Mercs, but he WAS close to the Merc pace.
evered7 (@evered7)
13th March 2015, 16:21
Promising start for Ferrari. The pace looks good, more importantly the pace is sustained over a few laps and improves at the end.
Although Melbourne might not be the best indicator of the cars’ prowess, it is good to see Ferrari showing its speed in the long runs as well. Hoping for a fight at the sharp end.
One question on the PU; Suppose the car is now able to generate/store max electricity output, does it mean the amount of fuel consumed will be less compared to last year? I saw the consumption values for Ferrari were usually high last season and want to know if that will come down due to this factor this season.
TMF (@)
13th March 2015, 16:24
I’m impressed by Ferrari – from 4th to fighting for 2nd with all the changes in the organization is no small feature.
karter22 (@karter22)
13th March 2015, 16:35
Ok and how about the difference between Sainz and Verstappen?? Sure the latter had problems with the car but now the gap was a whole lot bigger, what do you guys make of that??
Ferrari sure looks in better position than last year (tears me up inside because of ALO) but, I am positive that MERC has a bagload of performance hidden away. Come Sunday, they will open a can o´whoopazz on everybody else.
McHonda is getting frustrating to see but I guess patience is the key element. I just hope they get their act together quickly and hopefully they will give MERC a run for their money.
The team-mate battles will make this season worth watching!! Sunday can´t come soon enough!!
1. Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
  13th March 2015, 17:01
  @karter22
  how about the difference between Sainz and Verstappen?
  The FP1 gap is representative and the FP2 gap isn’t, and the difference was negligible. Way too early to draw a conclusion about that.
  1. faulty (@faulty)
    13th March 2015, 20:29
    I’m pretty certain that Massa’s water leak did not exclude him from Q2.
    1. karter22 (@karter22)
      14th March 2015, 0:49
      @faulty
      Who said anything about Massa?? Verstappen had issues with the battery I think it was. That kept him out of FP2 but still, @keithcollantine I think the kid had about 7 or so laps, he could have gone a bit faster before breaking down I suppose.
      Anyways, it´lol be interesting where they end up in qualy
Diallo Ibrahima (@ibraf1)
13th March 2015, 16:45
@keithcollantine Where are the sector times ? they are not available on f1.com anymore, it seems that we must pay the F1APP to have them right ? It’s difficult to know for example where HAM lost out to ROS in FP2. Thank you if you have more info on this.
1. Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
  13th March 2015, 17:02
  @ibraf1 If it’s possible to have them back I will do.
barkun (@barkun)
13th March 2015, 17:08
oh boy… for McLaren it seems to be even worse than it looked a couple weeks ago
1. mark p
  13th March 2015, 18:39
  They have to keep the drivers competitive. Ron has to go the the Manor garage to place a bet that whoever wins between the 2 teams can keep the white and red livery. Clearly McLaren knew they will be in competition with Manor and did not want to ruin the iconic image of red and white McLarens, 1st they have to beat Manor. If they can beat Manor there could be no stopping them and they will win the colours back.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
13th March 2015, 17:22
To clarify the qualifying rules: if there are no Manors tomorrow, do 15 go through to Q2?
Or is it declared an 18-car session, so only 14 cars make the cut?
1. David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
  13th March 2015, 17:30
  @bullfrog I think it’d still be a 20-car session, with 2 cars counted as doing what some did at Q3 a few years ago when those who reached Q3 weren’t given extra tyres.
McL88AsAp (@deongunner)
14th March 2015, 0:33
Honestly I expect both Merc will be more scary than last year, perhaps having a clean sweep in terms of race wins, its highly unlikely but not impossible.
Ferrari usually drop out a little bit on Saturday and Sunday, therefore putting an equal fight with Williams and Red Bull, as I expect that Red Bull seem hiding their pace, it will be a nice fight in most racedays for the final podium position.