munudeges wrote:
You can put Ferrari themselves in that bracket, because they got comfortable in what they believed was a comfortable pace advantage, or at least, they though they knew where they were. They've had a bit of a shock today.
Actually, even Mercedes seemed to be pretty shocked with the difference.
.....and? That's not where they need to be, and certainly not where they expected to be after testing that's for sure. The point here is that a team that is a long way behind at the first race just doesn't win the championship. The facts of many previous championships, as inconvenient as they are, bear that out.
I don’t think they really thought they were as ahead of Mercedes as some called them to be, at least I didn’t think they had such a big gap just based on testing performance... Probably the biggest difference (and I’m afraid that we will never agree on this point) is that I don’t believe that the gap in Melbourne is representative of what we could expect the rest of the season... If you are referring to previous championships for Mercedes, it wasn’t only their performance gap in Melbourne, they had that gap at every circuit and last year for example, it wasn’t the case.
I'm afraid they never were on a par on pace at all, mistakes or no mistakes. They fell away even further during the second half of last season. Alas, you're believing too much of that hype about a 'championship battle'.
We may have watched a different championship last year... But up to the middle of the season, Vettel was leading the Championship and Ferrari was in the fight for it... Did Mercedes out develop them in the second half? Most probably, although I believe their mistakes were more conducive to Mercedes running away than lack of pace... They outpaced Mercedes in several races in the second half also.
In the first half Ferrari got pole position (after been spanked in Melbourne like this year) in Bahrain, China and Baku, then they outqualified Mercedes in Monaco... Another pole in Canada... Were separated by 4 thousands of a second in Silverstone were they got P2, but got pole in Germany... Spa was an interesting race where the rain played a big role and not the pace of the cars, pole in Monza... Another race in which they lost pole by 6 thousands of a second in the US GP (which Ferrari won), 8 thousands of a second difference in Mexico and 8 thousands of a second in Brazil... I don’t know how you can take a look at last season and imply that Mercedes “dominated” that Championship... If anything, it was really close... They had 7 poles and at least 4 races in which they were in within less than a tenth from Mercedes... That for me is a championship battle.
For someone who says he doesn't believe rumours from journalists you sure do believe a lot of silly ones. Put out by Ferrari's press officer no doubt.
And that’s why I made sure that I said that it was a “rumor”.
If you're a long way off performance-wise at the first race history tells us you have immense difficulty making that back. This isn't just a couple of tenths we're talking about. In the vast majority of seasons the team who has that advantage at the first race wins the championship. It's pretty simple. You just can't be that far behind in performance.
I believe that beyond 2018, the previous championships were way too one sided towards Mercedes, so for me that isn’t a reference... If 2018 is any indication... We could be in for another fight this year, last year showed that you can have the deficit we saw in qualifying yesterday and still have potential for competitive championship.
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