Lewis Hamilton should be careful what he wishes for – Ferrari danger already spotted

Ferrari has gone on the front foot in their early-season chase of Mercedes with a big upgrade already for Shanghai. And Lewis Hamilton has publicly hailed his colleagues' work after asking them to "push, chase and work overtime" to develop the car – even though, in the end, Ferrari didn't end up using their 'macarena' rear wing beyond practice in China because of reliability concerns.

It may well help them to quickly close the performance gap between themselves and pace-setter Mercedes. But it may also derail their season as a whole if they're not careful, because we live in the cost cap era of F1 and there's only so much work the teams can do every season. They used to be able to spend their way out of trouble or into a title battle – not anymore. These days, it's the efficiency rather than speed of development that leads to a better season overall.

Ferrari might do well to look at Williams, who are in trouble right now, but unwavering boss James Vowles is not hitting the panic button. He said after the Australian Grand Prix, in which his team were entirely anonymous and left Melbourne pointless, that all the solutions to address their very overweight car are in his inbox.

But even though they could shed the pounds swiftly, they're not rushing to put the FW48 on a diet. "If this was a cost-cap-free world, I would execute it tomorrow. It would be done in a few weeks," Vowles said, adding: "But it's not."

Abandoning early parts before their full lifespan has been used makes them a waste of money, and no one can afford that anymore. So for Ferrari to be moving on to new designs at just the second race of the year is a risky move.

It could be one that pushes Hamilton into contention for podiums and race wins within the next few weeks and months. But that may come at the cost of a difficult end to the year if Ferrari focus too much on performance over price at this very early stage.

Walk before you can run

Part of me loved seeing young Arvid Lindblad speaking so confidently after his stellar F1 debut in Melbourne last week. And the other part cringed hard while he was describing himself as "a ruthless competitor", among other things.

Because as impressive as he was Down Under, it was one race, and he's not nearly experienced or accomplished enough to be running his mouth too much.

We can chalk this one up to the fact he's 18 and was very excited by his strong start. Let's hope Lindblad has the right people around to keep him firmly on the ground, where he needs to stay right now.

From the archive

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Fast fact

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Inside track

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