Yes. Let’s not forget that in the FP2 long runs, Leclerc was running the old, lower downforce, rear wing. I think I’m correct in saying that Sainz was already running the high downforce wing and he was already faster than Perez on long runs in the soft tyre. Seems like both cars have now gone in that higher downforce direction and you can see they’re keeping tyres alive in S3 which is a good sign.dialtone wrote: ↑21 May 2022, 17:42https://i.imgur.com/IWg4a9w.jpeg
This telemetry makes it very clear to see how Ferrari fixed tyre deg, they added a bunch of downforce overnight.
* LEC was 6kph down on main straight to RUS (318k v 324k), although VER and SAI are just 1kph apart. LEC also great through T1-2 which shows the higher downforce. SAI sadly made a mistake there.
* T5-6-7-8 LEC has monster traction, just a totally different level
* T9 is interesting, both SAI and RUS are really fast while LEC and VER are slow, this is kind of opposite than previews FP sessions, so maybe LEC going slower not to overcook tyres there.
* In S3 you can really see Ferrari stability under braking that allows LEC to get as fast as he can right before the corner and on the finish straight again Ferrari with that 200-280kph acceleration advantage
As I shared earlier race sim in FP3 show that Ferrari bridged the gap in tyre deg, thanks to the added downforce. I don't know what VER could have done here, S3 from RedBull, especially T11 has been a bit slower but VER lap was very solid, no mistakes, despite the lower DF than Ferrari he clearly does better than LEC in T9 but it's just slower in T6-7-8-9 and he would cook the tyres for S3 if he tried to go even faster there.
Merc is very close, slow corners are really where they lose, especially that last chicane, but they are a threat.
Will be an interesting race, Ferrari may have solved big tyre deg, but maybe not enough to keep RB behind, we'll see tomorrow.
People talk about Charles’ best quali laps - and this was a great one, no doubt - but I think they also sleep in some of his 2019 quali performances because the car had so much power. He himself mentioned Singapore 2019 as one of his best, but there are also places like Spa and Russia 2019 where he annihilated Seb in the other car by something like 7 tenths. Tl:dr he’s always been a quali beast.
