In-Car Insights: Is Ferrari sandbagging or just struggling in Austria?
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What insights do the hosts share at the start of the episode?
Welcome to In Car Insights, where we offer you insight from a car. We failed you on one score. We're not in a car. We're on little sort of wobbly chairs. No, wobbly chairs. They rotate. Comfy chairs. Sofa-esque, but they're just chairs. But we do have insight, don't we, John?
I hope so. It's been a bit of a better day. My sunk cost fallacy problem of yesterday hasn't really happened. I got to the paddock eager to chase people before curfew this morning. And there's quite a funny little scene because curfew ended at 9 o'clock. So I stood in the paddock. There's certain places down in the paddock you know people are going to walk past you. One's a paddock gate. So I observed the very end of curfew at nine o'clock and at like 8.59 and 30 seconds, a lot of Audi mechanics marched forward to the gates and they were holding their passes out and they were all counting down their watch and bang on when it went 8.59, 59 seconds, passes on, hit nine o'clock, straight through. Absolute pure efficiency from Audi there to come in the second curfew ended.
One of my great joys is when we arrive and it's a little bit before curfew and there can be a few dozen, in some cases, in extreme cases, go somewhere like Singapore, sometimes there'll be more than 100 personnel all just waiting to get in, but you can just barge all past them. No, no, we're coming through. We're not operational personnel. We are fine. So let's look at the on-track action today. Mercedes fastest, so it felt a little bit like... Business as usual, Camille Antonelli quickest, fastest on the long runs as well, the Mercedes. So it feels a little bit back to where we were before that remarkable Sunday in Barcelona.
Yeah, I mean, no one's got any doubt that Mercedes is still the team to beat. It's been very quick. Obviously, the diffuser issue has flared up this weekend, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a minute. But it was never going to be anything that's a massive game-changer. So, yeah, Mercedes looks consistent. Everyone's struggling with tyres. It's going to be another high-deck race, another hot race. All those issues are coming through. But McLaren looks quite close. Red Bull seems to have made a little bit of a step. I think Mercedes is just mindful that Friday in Barcelona looked as comfortable as now and things turned around very rapidly on Sunday. So they're still a bit cautious. No confidence, but George...
I mean, you look at the lap times today, it didn't look too great for George in terms of single lap pace. But long runs, it's up there, right up there with Kimi. I think slightly quicker, according to one calculation I saw. So it looks like it's game on between the two Mercedes drivers.
Ferrari's obviously the interesting one. They've got this engine upgrade on the car. They were struggling for grip, sliding around a lot. I'm very interested to see what happens over the next few days because while Charles Leclerc was asked, oh, is it going to be like Barcelona that you struggle on Friday? And you go, well, he said, well, we're pretty confident in Barcelona there was potential. We're not so sure now. Now, I've not spent much time looking at this. I've had a quick glance at the data. There's quite a lot of Ferrari time going on the straights. There are a few corners where they're losing out, but I'm looking at that and thinking, are you being a little bit restrained with the engine as well?
Because everyone's struggling a bit for grip because, as you say, it's that tyre challenge. So... Not particularly positive noises from Ferrari, but I think we're going to need to have a look at tomorrow before we get a slightly better picture.
Yeah, they don't seem as comfortable as they were in Barcelona, even though Friday in Barcelona was difficult and it came back. I think they sense that things aren't as comfort. As you said, Leclerc complained about lack of grip, the lack of balance, the single lap pace didn't seem very quick. Lewis was fifth, so behind one Red Bull, one Mercedes, two McLarens. long run pace puts them behind Mercedes and McLaren on a par with Red Bull.
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