Formula 1: Ferrari’s Australian Grand Prix decision-making beyond ridiculous

Scuderia Ferrari’s decision-making in the 2019 Formula 1 season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, regarding their two drivers, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel, was beyond ridiculous.

In recent Formula 1 seasons, Scuderia Ferrari have made several questionable decisions as far as race strategy is concerned, and quite a few of these decisions have been made with the intent of helping Sebastian Vettel as opposed to Kimi Raikkonen.

But before the 2018 season ended, Ferrari confirmed that they would be replacing Raikkonen with rising star Charles Leclerc for the 2019 season.

In the 21-year-old Monegasque’s first race as Raikkonen’s replacement at the Maranello-based team, the Australian Grand Prix, to open up the 2019 season, which was also the first race as Ferrari team principal for Mattia Binotto, the team’s decision-making still ended up being beyond ridiculous, once again, with the intent of helping Vettel.

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In fact, a portion of this poor decision-making didn’t even help Vettel; it simply hurt Leclerc.

Leclerc went off the track early in the race, but he only lost a few seconds as a result of it; he did not lose fifth place, which is the position in which he started the race. After falling several seconds behind Vettel in fourth, he began to reel him in as the laps wound down.

It was clear that the 21-year-old Monegasque had what it took to pass the 31-year-old German for fourth place after reeling him in lap after lap and sometimes recording lap times that were more than one second quicker than Vettel’s laps. But Ferrari told him to hold his position and to increase his gap to his teammate.

Here is an audio clip of this discussion.

Before the season began, the team stated that Leclerc and Vettel would be free to fight. Yet in the season’s first race, they issued team orders to keep a much faster Leclerc behind Vettel.

Given a recent rule change, this decision would have made sense had Ferrari taken advantage of this rule change. With the driver who records the fastest lap in a race earning one bonus point, the Prancing Horse could have told Leclerc to pit for new tires in an attempt to have him record the race’s fastest lap as the race neared its conclusion.

With Rich Energy Haas’ Kevin Magnussen running roughly 30 seconds behind Leclerc in sixth place, Leclerc would have had more than enough time to make a pit stop and still come out in fifth with the fastest and freshest tires of anybody in the field, giving him a great chance to earn 11 points for a fifth place finish as opposed to the standard 10. After all, he was already much faster than Vettel to begin with.

For Ferrari, they would have essentially been risking nothing for the potential to gain one point.  Leclerc was bound to finish in fifth place either way given the fact that he was not allowed to pass Vettel. But instead, Leclerc was simply told to stay behind a much slower Vettel; nothing else.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas, who won the race, ended up earning this point, so had Leclerc earned it, it would have created a two-point swing in favor of Ferrari over their chief constructor championship rivals.

Mercedes currently have a 22-point lead (44 to 22) over Ferrari in second place in the constructor standings. Had Leclerc finished in fifth and recorded the race’s fastest lap, Mercedes’ lead over Ferrari would be 20 points (43 to 23).

Yet in addition to not allowing their clearly faster driver to pass their clearly slower driver, they were not willing to risk next to nothing for a great chance to essentially earn another two points in the constructor standings and for Leclerc to earn another one point in the driver standings.

With the Australian Grand Prix having been Mattia Binotto’s first race as Ferrari’s team principal, will the team’s decision-making change at any point throughout the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season? If so, how will it change, and who will these changes benefit?

The next race on the 21-race 2019 schedule is the season’s second race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, and it is scheduled to take place at 11:05 a.m. ET on Sunday, March 31 at Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain. It is set to be broadcast live on ESPN2, so be sure to tune in to it.