Though there were no disqualifications, Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur admits that Japan once again highlighted that there is still much to be done.
Finishing fourth (Leclerc) and seventh, both Ferrari drivers had uneventful, solitary afternoons, and while there were no-post race dramatics in the stewards office all at Maranello know that there is much work that needs to be done.
“I did the best I could today,” said Hamilton at race end. “I’m generally lacking performance compared to all the cars that are ahead of me, particularly Mercedes, McLaren and obviously the Red Bull,” he added.
“We found something on the car that’s been underperforming for the last three races,” he revealed, without identifying what that something might be, “so I’m really hoping when that’s fixed, I’ll start getting better results.
“I’m losing just over a tenth per lap with this issue we have,” he admitted. “So I’m hoping in the next race it’s fixed.”
Pushed to identify the issue, all he would say was: “They’re aware of it and they don’t know what’s caused it, they don’t know why. So, as I said, when the new component comes, hopefully it’ll be gone and it’ll be the same across cars.
“I’m relatively happy with the race pace that I did have, given what I had,” he added. “Otherwise, a good performance from the team. I think myself and Riccardo (his engineer Riccardo Adami) did a really good job, and the engineers and mechanics all did a really great job.”
“It was a bit of an annoying race,” said Leclerc, “I was completely on my own. The guys in front were too quick.
“In the first stint I thought maybe there was something to do, but then they started to push more and they were just faster. It’s disappointing because when you put everything together like we’ve done this weekend, I think the balance was in the right place, there’s just not enough performance in the car.”
Asked where he was losing out, he replied: “A bit everywhere. Maybe if anything the first sector was a little bit weaker, but that’s only by eye which can be a little bit confusing sometimes in the car. Because with the speed you have this yo-yo effect as well that is difficult to take everything out of it, because they were still quite far, like two seconds ahead. But my feeling was that we weren’t particularly good in the first sector.
“I think I learned plenty about the car this weekend, so that is the positive of the weekend really,” he added. “As much as we are disappointed with fourth place, we should be happy of us maximising the result and we should be happy about all the lessons learned this weekend.
“As I said, Friday I think was a really, really good day for that. I really went in quite extreme directions in an idea that I’ve had since two or three weeks. I wanted to try it and it worked out, so I was really happy with that.
“For now, we’ve just got to maximise the points,” he admitted, “which is what we have done, and I hope that later on in the season we can fight for better.
‘”I think this is the pace. Honestly, what we’ve shown is that there’s not much more in the car, so I think that’s where we are.”
“The average picture is that we are two or three-tenths behind the pole position yesterday, and perhaps two or three-tenths behind today,” admitted team boss Vasseur. “It’s a very good picture and we have to work from there.”
The bad news for the tifosi is that there is no ‘magic bullet’ at this time.
“If last year we did a good step forward from the beginning of the season to mid-season or whatever, it’s not that we found a magic bullet,” he said. “We never find something on the car at three or four-tenths.
“Quite often, when you improve, it’s because you are putting together ten areas with two or three hundredths of a second, and you are putting everything together, you are improving on the balance, you are helping the driver to get the best from the car.
“I think yesterday that we were not that far away, but it was very difficult for us, but I think probably the same for McLaren, to put the lap together,” he said of qualifying.
“If you look at the lap of Charles he lost one tenth and a half in the last chicane, and then he lost one tenth in the first corner, but I think it’s not an excuse.
“I’m not trying to say that we have the best car at all, because I think it’s exactly the same for Piastri and exactly the same for everybody, that when you are reaching a point it’s quite difficult to get the best of the car and we have also to improve on this, on the driver ability, let’s call it, to get the best from the potential.”
Despite not carrying over the momentum from last season, when Ferrari was battling McLaren for the team title, Vasseur is not despondent.
“I didn’t spend the winter to have expectations on race one,” he said, “I will be there or there, but I’m just going to Australia to race and to try to get the best from what we have. We had exactly the same approach last year. We were able to come back the first couple of races where we were six-tenths off on average, and we were able to come back during the season.
“We need to keep the same approach. It doesn’t matter the gap, it doesn’t matter the result of today. We need to try to do a better job next week to improve the potential and also the extraction of the potential of the car, its operation and potential.
“We have to improve everywhere and at least together we did a step forward compared to last week, last Sunday, at least on the operation. We have to start from there.
“It’s not the ideal as the start of the season for sure, but it’s still a long one with 21 to go.”
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.
