F1 News
Ferrari insider Leo Turrini: "They have found the problem from Melbourne"
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
Italian blogger Leo Turrini, who is famously very close to proceedings at Ferrari, has stated the team has found the problem from Melbourne which impeded them from really challenging for the win.
The insider has been right about a number of things in 2018. For example, he was very early with his reports that Kimi Raikkonen would return to Sauber (now Alfa Romeo). This time, he claims the Maranello-based team have found the problem from last week in Melbourne.
Heading into the weekend, Ferrari were the favourites to win after their impressive display in Barcelona at winter testing. They had the quickest car, both on race pace and on flying laps.
Come Melbourne, though, Mercedes suddenly topped all of the charts, and Ferrari were slacking. In qualifying, pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton was almost a full second ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
Now, a full week since the Grand Prix down under, Turrini reports they have found the problem.
"They say in Maranello that they understand it," Turrini wrote on his blog regarding the problems in Australia.
"So Mattia Binotto is still busy preparing for the race in the desert. What exactly was the problem in Australia, I don't know either. Was something wrong with the engine? A problem with the aerodynamics or were the stars simply not aligned for Ferrari?
"What I do know is that Binotto looks relaxed and that, boys and girls, as we know, is incredibly important when tackling a problem."