2022 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 18 - 20

[Vanja #66]

Honestly, I disagree. It's the other way around, but 10 HP tops. Red bull is clearly running with less downforce, either by choice or not and that's making them look better. Ferrari is better in medium speed turn in and early acceleration up to around ~250-260 kmh, especially when laterally loaded (T11-T13). I've been watching mini sectors trough the qualifying and ferrari was consistently posting purples on most straights. This was the case in fp2 already. People were speculating then that red bull is holding back on power, but in reality they haven't (as I was suspecting).

These are very small differences, one car might have just a bit more downforce and just a bit less drag. More downforce doesn't have to mean more drag when things are this close. Running the CFD of Ferrari, Merc and Red Bull style sidepods on the same car showed Ferrari might be lowering rear tyre drag with wide sidepods. Combined with smaller rear wing and smaller airbox than Red Bull and Merc, I am sure they have the least drag of the 3 launch cars and RB hasn't changed that much since then.

Anyway, thanks for your lap-time videos, great work!

[214270]

Rb apparent 10kg heavier than the Ferrari.

[Artur Craft]

From what I've seen RB is definitely fastest on top end by some margin but ferrari has best acceleration and I'm quite positive the most downforce as things stand today.
outube.com/v=RywYtHYQaiM

Indeed. Leclerc had 212 km/h as min speed on the fast right hander(either T5,6 or 7), the same as Max, last year. Given that these cars are almost 50kg heavier, it´s very likely that Ferrari already has more downforce than last year´s Red Bull. Unless the tyre got a lot better this year....

[dialtone]

From what I've seen RB is definitely fastest on top end by some margin but ferrari has best acceleration and I'm quite positive the most downforce as things stand today.
outube.com/v=RywYtHYQaiM

Indeed. Leclerc had 212 km/h as min speed on the fast right hander(either T5,6 or 7), the same as Max, last year. Given that these cars are almost 50kg heavier, it´s very likely that Ferrari already has more downforce than last year´s Red Bull. Unless the tyre got a lot better this year....

Ferrari has been flat through T7 since pre season. No other team is flat through it, very impressive.

[Artur Craft]

Ferrari has been flat through T7 since pre season. No other team is flat through it, very impressive.

Actually, the corner I´m talking about should be labeled as T4. As I already said before to another member, cars would need to generate some 7Gs in order to go flat out through it as they approach it at 250 km/h and are cornering at 212(on Leclerc´s case, Max only 205, which is only slightly better than on pre-season testings).

As current cars corner at around 5 to 5.5 Gs, they would need 39% more lateral acceleration(~7 to 7.6Gs) in order to be able to corner 18% faster(the difference from 250 to 212)

As a fun technical fact for you guys. If this Ferrari could race with 600kg, F1´s traditional mass up untill 2009, it would be able to have around 33% more lateral acceleration, which would make T4 almost flat out at around 7Gs

[Tvetovnato]

They better release the helmet cam footage of Charles’ pole lap, or else…

[PlatinumZealot]

Ferrari driver bromance on shaky ground ground now.

Based on?

Number 1 driver will be decided in a few races.

[JPower]

Ferrari driver bromance on shaky ground ground now.

Based on?

Number 1 driver will be decided in a few races.

Doubt it. Would not be surprised to see this season follow the same arc as last year. Leclerc figures the car out first but Sainz comes on strong down the stretch.

However, if the WDC is at stake post-summer break, I could see Binotto having to make some tough decisions.

[Xyz22]

Federico Albano analysis on Lec / Max Q3 lap telemetry:

[PlatinumZealot]

Based on?

Number 1 driver will be decided in a few races.

Doubt it. Would not be surprised to see this season follow the same arc as last year. Leclerc figures the car out first but Sainz comes on strong down the stretch.

However, if the WDC is at stake post-summer break, I could see Binotto having to make some tough decisions.

I mean, Ferrari tends to choose the leading driver quite early when the championship is at stake. I just can't imagine say, after five or six races with Charles leading, the team allowing Sainz to take points away from him while Max has a full chomp of the RedBull points. For things to be less awkward Binotto should to be very clear when the time approaches what the trailing driver has to do to avoid the wing-man status. Yeah, unfortunate, but that's the reality when you have two great drivers. Maybe the following year the wingman can turn things around, like Massa and Kimi.

[MTL79]

Based on?

Number 1 driver will be decided in a few races.

Doubt it. Would not be surprised to see this season follow the same arc as last year. Leclerc figures the car out first but Sainz comes on strong down the stretch.

However, if the WDC is at stake post-summer break, I could see Binotto having to make some tough decisions.

I think these decisions are already agreed to by Binotto, Leclerc and Sainz before the season even starts to be honest. Whoever is ahead at a certain point becomes defacto #1.

[JPower]

Number 1 driver will be decided in a few races.

Doubt it. Would not be surprised to see this season follow the same arc as last year. Leclerc figures the car out first but Sainz comes on strong down the stretch.

However, if the WDC is at stake post-summer break, I could see Binotto having to make some tough decisions.

I mean, Ferrari tends to choose the leading driver quite early when the championship is at stake. I just can't imagine say, after five or six races with Charles leading, the team allowing Sainz to take points away from him while Max has a full chomp of the RedBull points. For things to be less awkward Binotto should to be very clear when the time approaches what the trailing driver has to do to avoid the wing-man status. Yeah, unfortunate, but that's the reality when you have two great drivers. Maybe the following year the wingman can turn things around, like Massa and Kimi.

I don't think this Ferrari has much do with any version of Ferrari pre-2020 in terms of how the team is run.

Binotto said "free to race" again this season, but yeah, we'll see up to what point. I agree, he'll need to make things clear but I'm sure they've been over it in preparation for this season.

[LM10]

What I found interesting was that right before qualifying Andrew Shovlin said that they might divide the Ferraris. Was it a massive underestimation of Ferrari's potential or a massive overestimation of Mercedes' potential?

[dialtone]

What I found interesting was that right before qualifying Andrew Shovlin said that they might divide the Ferraris. Was it a massive underestimation of Ferrari's potential or a massive overestimation of Mercedes' potential?

I think everyone is using an old set of expectations to measure Ferrari and Binotto is clearly doing things very differently than in the past and has surprised a lot of people. I absolutely love this Ferrari.

[Juzh]

Honestly, I disagree. It's the other way around, but 10 HP tops. Red bull is clearly running with less downforce, either by choice or not and that's making them look better. Ferrari is better in medium speed turn in and early acceleration up to around ~250-260 kmh, especially when laterally loaded (T11-T13). I've been watching mini sectors trough the qualifying and ferrari was consistently posting purples on most straights. This was the case in fp2 already. People were speculating then that red bull is holding back on power, but in reality they haven't (as I was suspecting).

These are very small differences, one car might have just a bit more downforce and just a bit less drag. More downforce doesn't have to mean more drag when things are this close. Running the CFD of Ferrari, Merc and Red Bull style sidepods on the same car showed Ferrari might be lowering rear tyre drag with wide sidepods. Combined with smaller rear wing and smaller airbox than Red Bull and Merc, I am sure they have the least drag of the 3 launch cars and RB hasn't changed that much since then.

Anyway, thanks for your lap-time videos, great work!

I understand where you're coming from, however I still don't agree, and more people who analysed telemetry are leaning more towards my conclusions:
https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... _analysis/

This guy basically came to identical results as what I was observing trough testing, practice and finally qualifying:
- Ferrari has most downforce, medium drag levels and highest power output
- Red bull has lower downforce, very low drag and a bit lower power output (vs ferrari)
- Mercedes also has lower downforce, but very high drag and possibly not so high engine power (could be skewed by unreasonably high drag at this point)

my 2 cents