A solid start
After the first day of free practice for the Australian Grand Prixthe Ferrari confirmed the feeling of solidity seen in the pre-season, so much so that team principal Frederic Vasseur spoke of Friday in Melbourne as “a good starting point“.
A first verdict on the real competitiveness of the SF-26 will come tomorrow, with qualifying scheduled for 06:00 Italian time.
FP Australia, analysis by Diego Ioverno
At the microphones of F1, the sporting director of Ferrari Diego Ioverno he commented on the Australian free practices, which saw Hamilton and Leclerc finish in fourth and fifth place respectively: “I think it was one solid day. We didn’t encounter any major problemswe almost managed to complete the planned runs. There’s a lot to do and a lot of data to analyze, but it was a solid day. The riders found this day intense, very challenging and with many things to learn. They completed the runs, so they are happy with the day, but there is a long road ahead of us to continue to analyze and try to improve for tomorrow.”
Ioverno then added: “Because of the traffic we didn’t really do everything we wanted, but it’s difficult for everyone to have a clean run”, while maintaining the low profile already seen in Ferrari for the entire winter: “Are we happy? We are satisfied with today’s work. For happiness, we wait. It’s going to be a long weekend and a long season. I hope there will be time to be happy, but now we need to be focused.”
