2022 French Grand Prix - Le Castellet, July 22 - 24

[evered7]

Leclerc was behind traffic basically all of his laps, and judging by FP1 Ferrari isn't even pushing on the straights to not damage the engine, I would wait a few minutes to at least see telemetry before going all negative.

Saw him behind Ocon for a lap. I don't have the luxury of following only one driver. I see what they telecast. Not being negative. Just said my observations and last year was a scar which cut deep. Hence why I mentioned it as well. Weakest track for Ferrari last year I suppose.

Will wait for your telemetry analysis. Thank you.

[organic]

High tire degradation for Ferrari. Max was able to be in 1:37 for quite a few laps completed to just 1 or 2 by Ferrari. Sim work needed overnight. Ghosts of last year need to be laid to rest.

Mercedes might come into play with race pace. Russell sim was strong.
https://twitter.com/Vetteleclerc/status ... bXy3A&s=19

Austria Ferrari race runs in FP were weak.. same for the past few races honestly. Don't fret it's just sandbags in engine to not blow through limited components in free practices. RB with Honda don't have that component longevity problem; they had engine 1 at Abu Dhabi in 2021 and it seems this year they're running quite high modes in practice with their old engine

Even if the race Sims/quali pace is real, there will be convergence. RB will sacrifice some tyre degradation for a decent quali position and Ferrari the opposite

[Xyz22]

Leclerc was behind traffic basically all of his laps, and judging by FP1 Ferrari isn't even pushing on the straights to not damage the engine, I would wait a few minutes to at least see telemetry before going all negative.

Saw him behind Ocon for a lap. I don't have the luxury of following only one driver. I see what they telecast. Not being negative. Just said my observations and last year was a scar which cut deep. Hence why I mentioned it as well. Weakest track for Ferrari last year I suppose.

Will wait for your telemetry analysis. Thank you.

Outside of Ferrari performance this weekend why a lot of people still thinking that last year terrible race is some sort of indication? The chassis of the car is completely different. The fact that last year the car was awful doesn't matter at all.

[Watto]

Ferrari looking pretty good in FP be interesting to see tomorrow and what it brings

[organic]

Source: Toni Sokolov [@tonisokolov1011] on Twitter

[bosyber]

Wasn't able to watch FPs; any reason the longest stint done seems to have been 12 laps for the spanish drivers, but many a lot shorter?

[dialtone]

Alright, so telemetry is out:

LEC v VER


* LEC best lap came on the 2nd attempt with the same tire, same thing that SAI did.
* Compared to FP2 engine mode is closer to the same as RBR, but it's still not full beans on LEC's car.
* S3 continues to be a real struggle for VER, braking is much earlier, T10 is just very slow mid corner, he has to use the brake a lot more and is off throttle for the whole corner while LEC is on the throttle all the corner except for apex.
* Also in T1 however Ferrari can use the throttle more and goes through that corner 5kph faster on average and 6kph faster min speed.
* Top speed advantage for RBR, probably due to engine but also the lower DF wing, is among the highest in the last races at 6-7kph.

Car strengths and weaknesses appear unchanged between FP1 and FP2.

LEC v SAI


* Pretty identical laps but SAI does just slightly better in T5-6 which sets him up well for the rest of S2. S1 and S3 have a combined difference of 0.013 between the 2 in favor of LEC.
* Both cars on their 2nd attempt on the soft, showing actually somewhat normal tyre degradation, Max tried to best his lap on 2nd attempt but couldn't.

Race sims:


* Very impressive race sim for RBR
* Merc has older Mediums so their pace isn't that bad actually, but they aren't on the same level as RBR
* Ferrari seemingly with bad race pace, although LEC had some laps in the middle where his laps were compromised by traffic, laps 3-4-5-6. Lap 2 to lap 7 for LEC show similar degradation as to what RBR saw with VER. So why is Ferrari slow? Same story as FP1:



engine is very tuned down as you can see from the speed on the straights.

[Tvetovnato]

Alright, so telemetry is out:

LEC v VER
https://i.imgur.com/NwMWFi1.jpeg

* LEC best lap came on the 2nd attempt with the same tire, same thing that SAI did.
* Compared to FP2 engine mode is closer to the same as RBR, but it's still not full beans on LEC's car.
* S3 continues to be a real struggle for VER, braking is much earlier, T10 is just very slow mid corner, he has to use the brake a lot more and is off throttle for the whole corner while LEC is on the throttle all the corner except for apex.
* Also in T1 however Ferrari can use the throttle more and goes through that corner 5kph faster on average and 6kph faster min speed.
* Top speed advantage for RBR, probably due to engine but also the lower DF wing, is among the highest in the last races at 6-7kph.

Car strengths and weaknesses appear unchanged between FP1 and FP2.

LEC v SAI
https://i.imgur.com/Ge0Se9e.jpeg

* Pretty identical laps but SAI does just slightly better in T5-6 which sets him up well for the rest of S2. S1 and S3 have a combined difference of 0.013 between the 2 in favor of LEC.
* Both cars on their 2nd attempt on the soft, showing actually somewhat normal tyre degradation, Max tried to best his lap on 2nd attempt but couldn't.

Race sims:
https://i.imgur.com/onJ5H4y.png

* Very impressive race sim for RBR
* Merc has older Mediums so their pace isn't that bad actually, but they aren't on the same level as RBR
* Ferrari seemingly with bad race pace, although LEC had some laps in the middle where his laps were compromised by traffic, laps 3-4-5-6. Lap 2 to lap 7 for LEC show similar degradation as to what RBR saw with VER. So why is Ferrari slow? Same story as FP1:

https://i.imgur.com/Tc1Z4Ds.jpeg

engine is very tuned down as you can see from the speed on the straights.

Thanks a heap for these. The last picture, is that from the race sims? Ferrari were like half a second off Verstappen in the second sector almost all laps in the race sim, so deg cannot explain that difference. Must be engine settings?

[dialtone]

Thanks a heap for these. The last picture, is that from the race sims? Ferrari were like half a second off Verstappen in the second sector almost all laps in the race sim, so deg cannot explain that difference. Must be engine settings?

Yeah, that's from the race sims and it's due to engine settings.

[dialtone]

SAI v RUS


* Pretty close between the 2 in high speed sector S2, however given RPM curve their engine mode is set higher, higher even than RBR, so I expect the single lap pace to not look too good.
* Merc somewhat struggling in S3 and a bit in T1 (500m) and T3 (1100m).
* Could be balance of the car where they can choose to favor high speed straights or corners and today they picked straights, kind of like in Spain.

Checo is also not so fast:


Compared to his team mate:
* Engine mode appears to be the same, and top speed is the same between the 2
* Checo may have slightly higher DF wing as the one straight without DRS (3000m-4000m) has him pay a bit of speed.
* However despite the higher wing he's really struggling in the corners and in corner entry

Maybe he's not comfortable in the car, the opposite of what SAI has been going through and also since Monaco basically.

[atanatizante]

Seems that the RB18' new floor that has to pass the new tests in Spa is hampers them for at least 0.5 sec/lap, or maybe this unbalanced car and time loss is down to overheating the tires in the 3rd sector?

Nevertheless, VER being at least 1 sec faster than SAI&LEC in the FP2 sim race laps means they were lower on fuel, hence a possible 3 stops race strategy, due to both track roughness and very hot track temps...

[dxpetrov]

The presumption that RB aee using higher engine mode is Incorrect. Remember they still use the PU1 on Friday sessions in lower engine modes. The same pattern was there last year. You will see tomorrow what actual pace is and their top speed

[astralx]

Last year is last year.... this year they are using lower engine modes in free practices COMPARED TO Ferrari, you can see it, if you look at telemetry data from past free practices and compare it with data from races. Dosvidania 🫡

[mendis]

Seems that the RB18' new floor that has to pass the new tests in Spa is hampers them for at least 0.5 sec/lap, or maybe this unbalanced car and time loss is down to overheating the tires in the 3rd sector?

Nevertheless, VER being at least 1 sec faster than SAI&LEC in the FP2 sim race laps means they were lower on fuel, hence a possible 3 stops race strategy, due to both track roughness and very hot track temps...

How do you know RB18 will lose 0.5 second in Spa? There is no expert that is talking about it.

[chrisc90]

Seems that the RB18' new floor that has to pass the new tests in Spa is hampers them for at least 0.5 sec/lap, or maybe this unbalanced car and time loss is down to overheating the tires in the 3rd sector?

Nevertheless, VER being at least 1 sec faster than SAI&LEC in the FP2 sim race laps means they were lower on fuel, hence a possible 3 stops race strategy, due to both track roughness and very hot track temps...

How do you know RB18 will lose 0.5 second in Spa? There is no expert that is talking about it.

I know.

Not even any evidence of the 'new floor' being the one for spa onwards that needs to pass tests.