Ferrari fans would have readied themselves for a long season ahead. The Scuderia team had a debacle during qualifying yesterday. Also, Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel got knocked out in the second qualifying session and will start the race in 11th position. However, his teammate Charles Leclerc narrowly made it through Q2 and after an improvement in Q1 will start the race in 7th position.
Even before the season could get underway, there was not a great deal of optimism among the Tifosi. Even their own drivers had made it clear that it would be a challenging season ahead. But now, a grim picture reveals just how far Ferrari has fallen since last season.
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Ferrari are nearly a second slower than last year’s Austrian GP qualifying session
According to statistics by ESPN F1, when the results of yesterday’s qualification were compared to last year’s qualification at Spielberg, Ferrari were one of the biggest gainers of time. Only Alfa Romeo, who are rather unsurprisingly also powered by Ferrari, were worse off, having gained an additional 1.119 seconds.
The Maranello-based outfit are be ‘0.920’ seconds slower than last year. This just goes to show the incredible amount of power the team has lost with the new engine. The speed, or rather the lack of it, even had Leclerc reacting in sheer disbelief.
Ferrari are almost a second slower this year 😳 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/cKSiR2d2W6
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) July 4, 2020
However, despite the team’s woes during yesterday’s qualifying, Sebastian Vettel still hopes that Ferrari can do much better in the race. In the post-qualifying interview, the German said, “I think tomorrow it’s a different picture. It’s a long race, obviously, in race trim, we are always better. I think we’ll be there to make up some ground and score some good points.”
However, fans of Ferrari aren’t advised to get their hopes up too high. A podium finish seems highly unlikely for either driver, but they would be targeting a 5th-6th place finish. That’s really the highest realistic aim the Prancing Horse can hope for this year.
