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Ferrari's strategy at the Australian Grand Prix raised many questions. By choosing to leave both cars on the track during the first Virtual Safety Car period, the Scuderia ultimately lost a strategic opportunity to Mercedes, who took full advantage of the neutralization. The strategic debate is one of the key lessons to be learned from the Australian Grand Prix. When Isack Hadjar stopped on the track after his engine problem in the early laps, race control immediately deployed a Virtual Safety Car (VSC). This was an opportunity that Mercedes and most of the field seized to make pit stops.
Ferrari, on the other hand, chose to leave Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton on the track.
This decision quickly sparked a reaction… including in the cockpit.
Lewis Hamilton made no secret of his incomprehension over the radio. The Briton felt that Ferrari should at least have covered Mercedes with one of its cars.
In his opinion, stopping at least one car would have provided strategic cover against the Silver Arrows.
At the time of the neutralization, however, the Scuderia was in an ideal position: Leclerc had just overtaken George Russell at the start and was leading the race, with Hamilton in the top three.
The first few laps had been intense, with Russell and Leclerc swapping the lead several times.
A risky strategic gamble
But Ferrari chose not to pit. The team seemed to believe that the neutralization came too early to switch to a one-stop strategy, without wanting to switch to a two-stop plan either.
A decision that proved costly.
When the second VSC came out after Valtteri Bottas‘s pit stop, Ferrari hoped to take advantage of the neutralization to make a pit stop. But with the Finn's Cadillac immobilized near the pit lane entrance, race control closed the pit lane before the Ferraris could access it.
The Scuderia therefore had to stop later under race conditions, losing more than twenty seconds per car.
The situation became even more complicated for Ferrari when Mercedes realized that the tires were holding up much better than expected.
In the end, the two Silver Arrows did not need a second pit stop, which allowed them to control the end of the race and cruise to a one-two finish with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
Fred Vasseur defends the decision
After the race, Frédéric Vasseur was keen to put the criticism surrounding this strategy into perspective. “There are always post-race strategists who come along and say it was obvious.”
According to the Ferrari boss, the situation was much less clear at the time the decision was made. “Mercedes was probably thinking of making another stop at that point. We were all surprised by how well the tires held up: we could have almost done 350 laps with them.”
Could Ferrari really have beaten Mercedes with a pit stop under VSC? The question remains open.
Charles Leclerc himself acknowledged after the race that the Mercedes cars seemed slightly faster over the entire stint.
But with Antonelli falling back to seventh at the start, Ferrari might at least have been able to secure a better position against the young Italian.
One thing is certain: in such a strategic race, the first decision made under neutralization weighed heavily on the outcome of the Grand Prix. And in Melbourne, Mercedes was clearly the team that played its cards best.
