Are Ferrari Actually Closing the Gap to Mercedes? What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: April 10, 2016

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All the talk coming into the 2016 Formula One season was how Ferrari were finally catching up to Mercedes after two years of Silver Arrows domination.

"We know more or less where we are compared to Ferrari—which is why I say for sure it is close," said Mercedes' Nico Rosberg after the final pre-season test, per ESPN F1's Nate Saunders. "But we are not sure if we are ahead or behind."

After qualifying at the first race, in Australia, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen said of Mercedes, "Obviously they are very fast but I don’t think we should be too worried," per F1i.com's Phillip van Osten.

Of course, Rosberg won the first two races for Mercedes with his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, finishing second in Australia and third in Bahrain. Those are exactly the same results the Mercs scored in Australia and Bahrain last year, but with Hamilton taking the victories.

Ferrari have been hindered by two retirements, although Sebastian Vettel could have won in Australia if not for the team making the wrong tyre choice following a mid-race red flag and restart.



In 2015, with the calendar in a different order, Vettel picked up his first win for Ferrari at the second round of the season, in Malaysia.

Ferrari haven't found the same success yet this year, and it is only two races into a 21-race season, but what do the times tell us so far about Ferrari's improvement and their gap to Mercedes?

First, let's look at qualifying. We will compare the drivers' times from Australia and Bahrain this year to the same two races last year (even though Bahrain was Round 4 in 2015), as well as those from last year's Malaysian Grand Prix.



In Australia, the gap from the fastest Merc to the fastest Ferrari was nearly halved, from 1.430 seconds in 2015 to 0.838 seconds this year. That is the good news for the Scuderia. The bad news is that Vettel was still more than 0.8 seconds sl...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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