Better you, not you
The Australian GP which opened this new era of Formula 1 saw a Mercedes triumphant – capable of bringing home the double that everyone predicted – but also one Ferrari more competitive than yesterday’s forecastwith Leclerc and Hamilton finishing the race in third and fourth position and showing themselves capable, above all thanks to an extraordinary start, of making life difficult for the silver arrows during the first stint.
In the back podium, before receiving the trophies on the awards ceremony stage, George Russell and Leclerc himself teased each other about the performance of their respective cars. It was the Englishman who lit the fuse who, perhaps to respond to the dejected comments made yesterday by Leclerc after qualifying, told the Monegasque that “you guys weren’t that slow“. A comment on the apparent closeness of performance between the SF-26 and the W22 which however did not convince the red #16 too much.
“You made a mess”
“Yes, but yesterday in qualifying you guys…” Leclerc replied to him, underlining the eight tenths trimmed from the first of the silver arrows to the Cavallino driver himself on the flying lap. “Yes…I think you guys screwed up a bit in Q3“, Russell’s comment. Skirmishes that we have seen many times in the past in similar situations but which also suggest that perhaps, around Brackley, there is actually a bit of fear for the growth potential of Ferrari which at the moment seems to be the only team on the grid that can, from time to time, put its wheels in front of those of the silver single-seaters.
