En Rouge Ferrari

The Australian Grand Prix

Friday, March 15th, 2019 was the fastest day of my life. Free Practice 1 went off without a hitch. At the end of the day Charles and I rounded out the top 3. Lewis Hamilton was obviously first, I surprised myself with second, and Charles followed with third. Despite my insane nerves, once I settled into my car I couldn't help but do what I do best, which was race. However, I got cocky, and in Free Practice 2 I was fifth overall which Charles doing even worse in ninth. It sucked and all of a sudden I felt my resolve slipping away from me. But deep in the Paddock, Charles reassured me and when Pierre finally came along I was starting to feel better.

Saturday was better with Free Practice 3. Just as nervous as the day before, but the results mirrored those of FP1. Lewis first, me second, and Charles third. The media was already going wild and I finally had to turn off my phone to avoid all the attention. I did the interviews, the press conferences, the pictures, the autographs. I did it all with a smile, but a shaky hand. And when Charles would come and have a feather-light touch on the small of my back, I knew I could get through. He was my anchor and Pierre was my lighthouse. The two boys who kept me grounded but always fighting, competing, and pushing me to do more than I ever thought I was capable of.

Then came qualifying. As all 20 cars headed out on track for the first part of qualifying, it was Charles who left it till late in the session to put himself top in Q1 for Ferrari, edging Lewis by just 0.026s. With the track evolving rapidly throughout the segment, Pierre was the big shock exit and after the fact I was sourly disappointed. Red Bull seeming to miscalculate the knock-out delta and failing to send out the Frenchman, leaving him P17 in his first qualifying for the team as a result. I came out 11th disappointed but determined to improve. All anxieties I had felt earlier were gone. I was in race mode, razor sharp focus, and a look that could kill.

Lewis headed a Mercedes one-two in Q2, setting a new Albert Park record with a 1m 21.014s. Charles and I seemed to struggle in the segment, with him in P4 behind Pierre's teammate Max, and some 0.7s off Mercedes' pace. I was lucky to escape unscathed after running very wide at Turn 12 on my final run, ending up P6. I was improving, but not by much. I needed more, a higher place, I had to prove myself, I needed to start this season off better than anyone would think. I would never forgive myself if I flubbed this and the world turned it's back on me. Judging me and saying, "See she's just a girl. This is why there have been no women before her. This is a man's sport for a reason." I really had only one more chance.

So it was 1-1 across the first two segments between Ferrari and Mercedes going into Q3 – but who would rise to the top in the one they all really cared about? The answer was emphatically Mercedes, with Lewis once again looking in scintillating form around Albert Park to record the sixth consecutive pole here for him and Mercedes, and extend his career tally to 84. Bottas was only a tenth off his teammate, and had been sitting pretty in first after the first Q3 run, but in the end he had to settle for second best. In the end we were nowhere near the front row. My P3 time was 0.704s adrift of Lewis's best – although I managed to finish two places up on Charles. The first signs of the pace in the Red Bull RB15 indicate that, as expected, it looks to be the third-quickest car in the field, as Verstappen split the red cars, 0.824s off Hamilton.

So, after a long wait over the winter, it seems the world finally has their answer for who has the advantage heading into 2019. Qualifying, however, is one thing - racing quite another. And as the media is quick to not let me forget - Sebastian Vettel won from P3 in Melbourne 12 months ago. I have a lot to look up to, even more to live up to, and a long way to go before I earn any sort of respect from the Tifosi. And so as I went mindless through the preparations for the race I had only one thought in mind: If I don't finish first I might as well not have finished at all.

The seeds of Valtteri Bottas' victory were sewn off the line in Albert Park, the Finn rocketing out of his grid slot to head Hamilton by the time they reached Turn 1. Behind, Daniel Ricciardo's home race got off to a nightmare start, as he got launched over the grass at the pit exit as he tried to squeeze past Racing Point's Sergio Perez and ripped his Renault's front wing off, the resulting damage appearing to give the Australian a handling imbalance on his R.S.19.

Down at Turns 1 and 2, Charles came within a whisker of blotting his Ferrari copybook early on as he attempted a move around the outside of me, nearly wiping the two scarlet cars out of the race before the end of the first lap.

Further down the order, McLaren's Carlos Sainz enjoyed a strong getaway from P18 to climb three positions – but having ended up in that lowly grid place after a frustrating qualifying yesterday where we was blocked by Robert Kubica, Sainz's tough start to the year continued when his MCL34 had a fiery expiration on lap 11.

At the front of the field, Bottas looked comfortable ahead of Hamilton, while behind, Max Verstappen was showing that there was pace in the Honda-powered Red Bull, the late-stopping Dutchman moving from fourth to third on lap 32 with a brilliant move around the outside of Turn 3 on me. Both me and my new SF90 seemed out of sorts on race day in Melbourne, which eventually ending up with me asking my race engineer at one point 'Why are we so slow?'

No-one on the Ferrari pit wall seemed to have an answer, and as Verstappen got clear and went after the second-placed Hamilton – who ultimately managed to hold on until the race end, aided by Verstappen slewing off the track at Turn 1 in his hot pursuit – I had to suffer the ignominy of Charles being told to hold station behind me, as we cruised around in formation in fourth and fifth.

Lap 30 saw Ricciardo capping off his miserable Renault debut when the team retired him with a suspected issue, while a lap before, Haas' Romain Grosjean pulled off to the side of the track for his own retirement. The cause? Amazingly, the Frenchman's front-left tyre appeared to have been fitted incorrectly in his pit stop, the self-same issue that forced his withdrawal from a strong points-paying position in 2018.

With a handful of laps to go, and with around a 25-second advantage, Bottas was so comfortable that he radioed into the Mercedes pit to ask if he should pit for fresh tires in order to try and set the fastest lap of the race to try and claim an extra point. Mercedes replied strongly in the negative, but the Finn had enough life left in his tires to set it anyway and round out a perfect weekend, with a full 26 points to his name.

"I don't know what to say," said a stunned Bottas after crossing the line to record win number four of his career, while also heading a Mercedes one-two for the first time since he last won at Abu Dhabi in 2017. "I don't know what just happened. It was definitely my best race ever." While I tried to seem happy and confident when I heard, I couldn't help but scowl on the inside. Who was I to think I could best a Mercedes?

Verstappen had never run in the top three at Albert Park until today, but showed that there was front-troubling pace in his Red Bull-Honda RB15 to claim the final podium position - Honda's first since 2008.

But it was back to the drawing board for us at Ferrari after the season opener, I crossed the line in fourth — a full 57.1 seconds adrift of Bottas — with Charles tucked in obediently behind as Ferrari stuck to the surprising Marie Gasly-biased plan that they'd announced (without my knowledge) they'd go for early on in the season. It was all a PR stunt, and Charles got the brunt of my anger long after the race tucked away in his motorhome.

As ruthlessly as I drove, as hard as I fought, I couldn't get past Mercedes. To top it all off, now any article surrounding me and my debut race for Ferrari involves Max Verstappen getting past me. Things like, 'Marie Gasly Cannot Stand Up to Twin Brother's Teammate' which needlessly pitted my skills against Pierre's AND Max's. Then another saying, 'First Female Formula One Driver, Marie Gasly, Claims Ferrari is Slow' which all but mocks me with jabs implying I can't handle the speed of the Ferrari's car or any F1 car for that matter, despite the fact that this isn't my first time racing.

Despite everything, we will head back to Europe to debrief on the opening race, before reconvening in a little under two weeks in Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix. They say we can expect a very different challenge to Melbourne, with hot temperatures, an abrasive track surface and a layout which offers plenty of opportunities for overtaking. I wanted nothing more than a debrief, as I had more than a few words for our Team Principal.