How Ferrari explained its bafflingly underwhelming Austrian GP

Ferrari's engine upgrade made a bafflingly underwhelming debut at Formula 1's Austrian Grand Prix as both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc went backwards.

Leclerc and Hamilton split the Mercedes in qualifying in second and third, but they quickly dropped out of podium contention as the only two drivers who needed to three stops, while the rest of the top 10 stopped twice.

That came amid the debut of Ferrari's engine upgrade and off the back of Hamilton's startling victory at Barcelona, where the three-stop strategy worked to great effect.

In Austria, the three-stop strategy was more out of necessity than a strategic masterstroke as both drivers chewed through their tyres.

After the race, team principal Fred Vasseur suggested Ferrari might have been suckered into fighting Mercedes too hard in the opening stint.

"It was a tough weekend, especially coming after Barcelona," Vasseur accepted.

"I don't think we got the weekend off on the right foot on Friday, as we struggled a lot in FP1 and FP2 and weren't able to complete proper long runs in representative conditions.

"In the end, we managed to recover some performance over a single lap in qualifying, with P2 and P3, which was a good result. But we probably didn't prepare the race as well as we should have.

"Looking back, we were probably too focused on Mercedes today. We pushed too hard in the opening laps with both cars and then perhaps reacted too aggressively with the strategy, trying to stay with them when, realistically, that wasn’t our race."

As for eighth-place finisher Charles Leclerc, he believed: "You can always do slightly better [strategy] with hindsight, but I think whenever the pace is not good, whatever strategy you do, it doesn't look great."

Even McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believed Ferrari's downturn was a lack of performance rather than strategy.

"I think for them it was more a matter of pace," he said when The Race asked about Ferrari's backward slide.

"And I'm not sure - we will have to look at the numbers - if it's just absolute pace in the race, or probably some additional tyre degradation compared to some other competitors."

Leclerc was once again a step behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was 19 seconds ahead in fifth.

"An incredibly difficult race. Very, very low grip overall. Just struggled to have the car and the tyres, especially in the right window, especially the rears," Leclerc said.

"Just missing a lot of rear grip. There's still a lot of work to be done. I think I've been working very hard in the past weeks because there was always one reason or another that made me struggle on the Sunday or on the Saturday.

"But at the moment, there's always a reason why there's a struggle. That probably means that I don't really have a clear picture of what I want from this car. Yeah, I've got to find that."

When it was put to him that it was difficult to understand how Ferrari had gone from second-best in qualifying to fourth-best on Sunday, Leclerc said: "It's difficult for us to understand as well.

"On Saturday, I think with low fuel, the car was quite nice. The front end was quite strong, and I like this. But in the race, the front end stayed strong, and the rear had no rear.

"So it's a balance that you've got to find that on this car is particularly difficult."

Power deficit exposed?

While it debuted an engine upgrade here, Ferrari's internal combustion engine was found to be more than 4% off the benchmark (Red Bull's) by the recent Additional Upgrade and Development Opportunities (ADUO) ruling.

The full extent of its deficit was never expected to be solely fixed by this engine upgrade, with a second one likely coming later this year.

And Hamilton believed Austria exposed Ferrari's current power shortfall.

"On Friday we were down six tenths just in straightline speed and I have to go and see what the case was today, but I'm sure it was not insignificant," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

"We're going to have to push really really hard to see when we can get the next power upgrade but yeah, when you're around these guys...it's deployment.

"It doesn't necessarily feel so much as power because when you come out of the corner it feels like you've got the grunt.

"It's just deployment at the end. Ours tails off. Particularly [compared to] Mercedes, they just keep going, so got a look at why and how we can improve that but that's not going come for a while."