F1 News: Ferrari admits it is behind everywhere in terms of performance 

Already six races into the season without a win and the best result of second place in the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari sporting director Mekies admits what would not be great news for Ferrari fans.

Mekies told Auto Hebdo, “We have not progressed as much as we would have liked since the end of the winter tests."

“In terms of absolute performance, we are behind everywhere. We need to improve in the way we manage our aero along with the mechanical grip and our tyres.”

“The interaction between what the car does and what the tyres do is one of the main keys to performance. They are different from last year and there is potential for development. We’re still in an exploration phase.”

With a quarter of a season already done and dusted the team there will be questions asked from the Scuderia about what they are doing if they are still just in exploration phase. This clearly shows a lack of understanding of the car and that's despite having in-season tests where cars cover decent mileage and should expose weaknesses.

However, despite getting dominated by Mercedes in the first 6 races Mekies prefers to see the positive side of things," We were not good in Australia, very good in Bahrain, average in China, pretty good in Baku, struggling in Spain and Monaco… We are at 6/0 but we could be 4/2!’

“Ahead of us we have a very strong team (Mercedes) and we have to be perfect everywhere to hope to beat them,” he added. This raises a crucial question as well about why the team couldn't capitalise at Bahrain and Baku and what went wrong there. Two wins out of Six wouldn't that bad for Ferrari and their 2019 campaign.

Ferrari dominated Canada last time around but are not the favorites this time

Next up on the calendar is the Canadian Grand Prix which is expected to suit Ferrari more than Barcelona or Monaco but Mekies throws caution to the wind, "Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is more like Baku and Bahrain where we were better, but we must remain cautious because things are moving quickly as we have seen since the beginning of the season.” It's not as simple as the Ferrari being quicker in a straightline and slower in the corners. Tyres are also playing a part and Ferrave have admitted to suffering from not being able to get them up to optimum temperatures.

It's a sad case of how far the mighty have fallen. Ferrari, a team that was supposed to wipe the floor off Mercedes following its pre-season form has fallen so far back that even on tracks that are supposed to suit their car they're not considered favorites. It's now become a question of "if" not "when" they will be competitive.

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