F1 | Ferrari: Norris breaks the eggs in the basket, SF-24 in trouble

At the end of the Chinese trip, Lando Norris slipped between Ferrari and what would have been considered a good haul. The Red Bull double had been widely announced, a McLaren on the podium had not. It was a surprising outcome, starting with Norris himself, who before the race didn't think he would be able to leave Shanghai with the high-tech runner-up trophy as hand luggage. The Grand Prix did not go in the direction of the reds just a few meters after the start, with Leclerc and Sainz losing a position, finishing in seventh and eighth place respectively.

Both Norris and Leclerc then capitalized on the entry of the safety car onto the track (lap 22) moving into second and third position respectively, but already in the first twenty laps Lando had been able to build an advantage of eight seconds over Charles, who was busy overtaking first Russell and then Piastri on the track.

For Ferrari, the hopes of finishing the race on the third step of the podium (Perez's comeback was taken for granted) were linked to the possibility of catching Norris on hard tyres, but the track said otherwise.

“With both drivers we had planned two stops – Frederic Vasseur then explained – it was the entry of the Safety Car that made us focus on a single stop”.

Same choice made by McLaren. The race resumed (lap 27) Norris took off with the harder compound, with Leclerc arriving under the checkered flag ten seconds behind Lando, a margin into which Perez slipped. It didn't go any better for Sainz, whose fifth position was also threatened by Russell's Mercedes, an attack that was then repelled.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

At the end of the race the analysis of the men in red converged on the performance gap highlighted with the hard tyres, but in general the pace of the SF-24 in the race was not up to the standard of the McLaren, the harder compound only highlighted more a gap already seen with the averages.

“We cannot be satisfied with our result today – commented Leclerc – from Shanghai we take home two points to focus on: our pace in qualifying and the performance with the hard tyres, which was the biggest problem in the race. Our strategy was good and so was the performance; after the Safety Car we all found ourselves on the track with the same hard tires but we weren't able to make the most of them.”

The first race of the season without a Ferrari on the podium shouldn't be too surprising. The Scuderia (in its role as second force) capitalized well in the first four weekends of the season, but on some occasions McLaren itself did not collect as much as it could have.

The opposite happened in Shanghai, the layout of the circuit and the particular conditions of the track were better suited to the MCL38, a single-seater that is not far from the SF-24, or at least not as far away as the Red Bull is on the rest of the group.

Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal and General Director, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Ferrari

“It was reasonable to expect that we would have had a better pace than we saw in the race – admitted Vasseur – we must identify the causes that made us lose competitiveness today, especially with the hard tyres, and do a better job in Miami both in qualifying than in the race, because in this Formula 1 everything is played out on the basis of cents and every detail can make a huge difference.”

Up until Shanghai the “cents” had always been in favor of Ferrari, but not in China. Now the challenge will move to the updates front. A match that will begin in Miami and will be completed in Imola, where we will see if the scale of values ​​on the pitch (which will dictate the hierarchies until the beginning of the summer) will undergo changes.