I write this article with great excitement and high anticipation of the forthcoming Chinese Grand Prix. I truly believe the Malaysian GP perked dying interests of the F1 motorsport worldwide and I am incredibly hopeful this type of racing continues this season for the health of the sport itself. For such a show to continue, however, the sport is almost wholly reliant on an apparent Ferrari resurgence – a team which has clearly improved substantially compared to its competitors from 2014. This article questions whether Ferrari really have the ability to take the fight to Mercedes, or whether they are simply pawns being very cleverly played by the German team.
Thinking about the race and Ferrari’s seeming quantum leap, I began to question the validity of the Italian marque’s win: have they really made such a jump? You may recall I wrote an article after the Australian GP predicting that Ferrari were much closer to Mercedes than people thought, but even then, at best, I thought they would finish at least 20 seconds behind Mercedes in Australia in clean air. Vettel finished almost 10 seconds ahead of Hamilton in Malaysia. So apparently during the 2 weeks between Australia and Malaysia, not only did Ferrari recover the 20 second deficit, the team surpassed Mercedes by 10 seconds – therefore finding 30 seconds between the two races. I do not know whether it is the lawyer in me that is prompting these thought processes, yet I began to question whether Mercedes allowed Ferrari to win the Malaysian GP. After all, it silenced all the naysayers and calls for engine equalisation.
I may be labelled a conspiracy theorist, but I will put my argument to you and let you decide. After the race in Malaysia both Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda fully accepted the ‘fair’ loss to Ferrari, in true unconventional F1 fashion, with no excuses and even admitting Ferrari might have won without a safety car – I mean, is there such a thing as being too ‘gracious in defeat?’
This begs the question as to why, why would Mercedes WANT to lose? Well they didn’t, they brought two cars home on the podium – a fantastic feat – and had now silenced any talk of engine equalisation. You will recall that after the team’s dominant display in Australia there were calls from the Red Bull camp for rule changes, they claimed Mercedes were just too far ahead in terms of engine performance, they even threatened to quit the sport should the powers to be not heed to their demands. However lo and behold, after the Malaysian race, even Red Bull’s Christian Horner admitted to overreacting in Australia and now recognises – from Ferrari’s apparent performance leap – that Renault are just as capable of reaching Mercedes without the need for rule changes.
I guess there is no real conclusion to this article, as we would never know whether Mercedes did hold back in Malaysia. Some say that if Ferrari are competitive in China, this would provide the answer. I understand the thinking behind this, nevertheless I would be very surprised if it was anything other than a Mercedes driver winning the championship this year. ‘Food for thought’ as they say…
Amir Hussain
