Ferrari's problems may be related to the simulator

      The Ferrari team failed the first stage of the season in Melbourne: Charles Leclair finished eighth, and Lewis Hamilton finished tenth. In his native Italy, the Scuderia immediately came under fire, and this weekend in Shanghai, the team expects very different results.

      But what went wrong in Australia? The press cites several reasons that allegedly led to speed problems on the Albert Park highway. One of them is related to the incorrect correlation of the data obtained on the simulator and on the race track. Allegedly, based on the figures obtained on the simulator, the team's engineers brought a rear wing to Melbourne, which created too much downforce.

      In addition, due to concerns about excessive wear of the underbody control bar, the car had to be adjusted to too high ground clearance to the detriment of aerodynamic efficiency.

      However, the former head of the Haas team, Gunther Steiner, has another theory. He says that over the winter, the engineers failed to make the necessary progress, so the gap from rivals has increased.

      "I talked to the team leader, Frederic Wasser, and he's a little disappointed with the way things have been going over the winter," says Steiner. – He thinks that others have added more.

      The honeymoon is over for Lewis Hamilton. Now he has to show results."

      Based on the results of the race on a stationary track in Shanghai, it will be possible to draw more accurate conclusions about the balance of power at the beginning of the season, but in the meantime, Ferrari will have to find the root cause of the problems: their car is not fast enough, or in Melbourne the team was the victim of erroneous data obtained on the simulator.