2024 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Vanja #66]

From telemetry, my best guess is a perfect storm of tyre warm up issues for Leclerc along with his typical setup and driving style that stresses tyres less than Sainz, so I guess this also means less heating up.

So the track was getting colder and colder with no sunlight to warm it up as the session passed. Leclerc's Q3 lap matches T1-snail performance of Q1 lap, while Q2 lap was his best there today (not shown on graph). Add the long back straight and only two corners before the next straight and your tyres inevitably get cooled down and in my view Leclerc's setup made those tyres fall out the bottom of the temp window before he hit T1 in Q3. T1-snail in Q3 lost him 0.37s to Max and further 0.25s on the whole rest of the lap. If the track was as hot as Q1 in Q3, the gap would have been around 0.4s in my view.



Sainz on the other hand never lost so much time in T1-snail. In fact, his Q2 lap (like Leclerc and also not shown on graph) was his personal best there today and completely matched Max' Q3 time. However, he lost quite a lot more time on the rest of the lap than Leclerc every time, leading me to believe he lost less time today on colder track during Q3 than Leclerc. One difference was also quite evident in the Sprint today, he takes a different line to Leclerc there and this seems to work better in Q for a Ferrari, while making basically no difference in the race trim.



Since tomorrow the conditions will be the same as today (maybe even more cloudy), I expect the cars in front will struggle a lot less with deg as the race goes on, unlike Suzuka. On the other hand, Leclerc might suffer in the early laps with his slow-to-heat-up setup. Ferrari have little choice, they will both have to back off in the first stint, extend it forever and watch how the race unfolds and go from there. One stop might be both doable and a very good choice in their case. I think they would do well to go M-M-S as I said today, making M-M stints until lap 45 could be doable and then go for a trail blaze run on Softs for 10 laps.

I'm not expecting a podium due to cold weather, while Alonso might just pull a rabbit out his hat tomorrow and hold 2 McLarens and 2 Ferraris the whole race.

[LM10]

2.5 tenth Imola upgrade does not look that hot anymore, does it?
That's not enough to cut RB's advantage even in half, and that's without Red Bull's upgrades of their own.

That's if you believe that the qualifying times Ferrari set today were the true pace of the car (meaning tyres were in the window). For me it's obvious this wasn't the case.
2.5 tenths in the simulator don't factor in the tyre warm up problem Ferrari has. Improvement in preparation alone will translate into better lap times.

Leclerc himself said that they can't blame their quali struggles on tyre prep anymore: "We still have some small problems but today we can't blame everything on the tire preparation , in fact I think we've made a good step forward and more than the tire preparation it's the very specific characteristics of the first sector that have limited us"

[link: https://formu1a.uno/it/ferrari-la-quali ... r-la-gara/]

What Leclerc said does not rule out what I wrote. Leclerc might have done the prep as good as possible, but there could still have been more potential in the car. However, as long as there is a limit to it from the car itself when it's cold there will still be tyre warmup issues which the driver can't overcome by himself.

Vasseur after the spring qualifying said that they won't change their approach of focusing on the race. It seems like everything on and around the car is done with the race pace in mind, almost in an overreactive way. Maximizing race pace will compromise one lap pace and even more so when it's cold.
With track temperature dropping towards the end of qualifying today, the S1 performance of both Ferrari's dropped too. None of them managed to be faster than 25.2 in S1 in Q3 while Sainz in Q2 did a 25.0. Even this fastest S1 time of the day for Ferrari was a tenth down on Hülkenberg's S1 time of 24.9 in Q3.

I don't think that there is something inherently wrong with the car which needs a substantial overhaul of the concept to get on top of this issue. I'm sure that the one lap pace will improve once we go to hotter races or at the latest with the first upgrade package at Imola.

[KimiRai]

while Alonso might just pull a rabbit out his hat tomorrow and hold 2 McLarens and 2 Ferraris the whole race.

I would like to share your optimism but that's almost impossible (at least the Ferraris), a sprint race is something but doing that over the whole race distance is unthinkable... plus he's going to get penalised for looking at stewards the wrong way anyways

[organic]

Since tomorrow the conditions will be the same as today (maybe even more cloudy), I expect the cars in front will struggle a lot less with deg as the race goes on, unlike Suzuka. On the other hand, Leclerc might suffer in the early laps with his slow-to-heat-up setup. Ferrari have little choice, they will both have to back off in the first stint, extend it forever and watch how the race unfolds and go from there. One stop might be both doable and a very good choice in their case. I think they would do well to go M-M-S as I said today, making M-M stints until lap 45 could be doable and then go for a trail blaze run on Softs for 10 laps.

I'm not expecting a podium due to cold weather, while Alonso might just pull a rabbit out his hat tomorrow and hold 2 McLarens and 2 Ferraris the whole race.

I think you're being overly pessimistic, and extrapolating from the sprint where Ferrari were bottlenecked. However the sprint is simply unusual in many ways.

The sprint is an anomaly in the sense that everyone knows you can't pit and nobody else can pit. There's no threat of undercut and there's no strategy other than telling your driver whose tyres are dying to defend for everything they've got. Virtually everyone also starts on the same tyres. And there is far more reason for Alonso/Norris/piastri/merc to defend for their lives Vs Ferrari in the sprint compared to stint 1 of the race when they will lose out anyway at some point and only be hurting their tyres in the process.

Only a seriously potent DRS train could hold Ferrari up and even then I doubt for more than 10 laps

[Seanspeed]

I think this pretty well supports that our closest rival is indeed Mclaren, not Red Bull. Yes, we might edge Mclaren in race pace again, but we'll likely not be anywhere near Red Bull.

I know people want to hope for more, just realistically, catching Red Bull is looking like more than a longshot at this point.

[f1316]

Since tomorrow the conditions will be the same as today (maybe even more cloudy), I expect the cars in front will struggle a lot less with deg as the race goes on, unlike Suzuka. On the other hand, Leclerc might suffer in the early laps with his slow-to-heat-up setup. Ferrari have little choice, they will both have to back off in the first stint, extend it forever and watch how the race unfolds and go from there. One stop might be both doable and a very good choice in their case. I think they would do well to go M-M-S as I said today, making M-M stints until lap 45 could be doable and then go for a trail blaze run on Softs for 10 laps.

I'm not expecting a podium due to cold weather, while Alonso might just pull a rabbit out his hat tomorrow and hold 2 McLarens and 2 Ferraris the whole race.

I think you're being overly pessimistic, and extrapolating from the sprint where Ferrari were bottlenecked. However the sprint is simply unusual in many ways.

The sprint is an anomaly in the sense that everyone knows you can't pit and nobody else can pit. There's no threat of undercut and there's no strategy other than telling your driver whose tyres are dying to defend for everything they've got. Virtually everyone also starts on the same tyres. And there is far more reason for Alonso/Norris/piastri/merc to defend for their lives Vs Ferrari in the sprint compared to stint 1 of the race when they will lose out anyway at some point and only be hurting their tyres in the process.

Only a seriously potent DRS train could hold Ferrari up and even then I doubt for more than 10 laps

Leclerc sounds very bullish about race pace so I think he knows they have the capability to come through. They were seemingly surprised to be shuffled down the order so much - so probably regret going quite as far towards the race as they did - but I think 3rd place is very much on. I suspect there might be the pace to match Checo when they get there but it’ll be too late by that point (barring safety cars or whatever).

Ultimately at this point, it’s just raw performance they need and the rest will come. They’re behind in the development race - by choice, it should be said - because others have already brought more performance and Ferrari are waiting on a big package. I remember a comment from Vasseur last season when he was musing over McLaren’s update and how that might be the way to do things now - I think they’re looking to make a similar (albeit not quite so dramatic) step change and learn about a complete package all at once, rather than constantly iterating.

This won’t change the fact that the DNA of the car is race focused. But if they move the overall window up 3 or 4 tenths then that will translate across quali and the race and everything becomes more simple. That’s the hope anyway and you have to also hope RB don’t move the goalposts again in the meantime.

[dia6olo]

I Personally think that Ferrari are closer to Red Bull than what some think.
Initially there was talk of 3/3.5 tenths with some now thinking it bigger, I still feel it is around the initial 3/3.5 tenths talked about.
Ferrari currently have a tyre warm up problem, because of it, at best they are starting races behind the Bulls at worst behind slower cars.
Meanwhile for the most part Red Bull have had the luxury of driving in clean air and those two scenarios make a significant difference to race pace. Max has had that luxury at every race so far.
I genuinely think that if they both had the luxury of driving in clean air the entire race that the real gap is no more than around 3 tenths...
Ferrari need to sort their quali pace out, slipping behind the likes of McLaren, Mercedes & AM in quali is for me what's making the Red Bull gap look bigger than what it really is in terms of race pace.

[JPower]

I think a 3-4 should be on the cards if everything goes right.

Piastri's race pace is still suspect, Norris and Alonso will be tough to catch if they spend a lot of time in free air.

[deadhead]

I know people want to hope for more, just realistically, catching Red Bull is looking like more than a longshot at this point.

Maybe by mid 2026 they might be thereabouts but it all depends on how much RB have left in the tank in terms of development.

The highly anticipated "2.0 Imola package" will reveal a lot

[jambuka]

Well here we go again. Tire pressure raised by 1 ….. again. How is this permitted again and again ?

[AR3-GP]

Well here we go again. Tire pressure raised by 1 ….. again. How is this permitted again and again ?

It’s actually going to hurt Mclaren and Aston Martin more if anything. High pressures just increases degradation.

Pirelli does it when they see too much structural wear from flex in the sidewalls.

[CouncilorIrissa]

And it is drizzling.
It really is typical to have constantly colder weekends than usual now that Ferrari have a car that is good on the tyres.

[Schippke]

Hoping the (suspected) better tyre wear from Ferrari comes to assist them, despite the colder conditions… they don’t exactly look fast at the moment. Being held up by Russell doesn’t help much either but early signs I cannot see Ferrari challenging Alonso, nor McLaren.

[Xyz22]

Awful race for now

[Schippke]

Sainz seems to be struggling a lot now… falling behind Oscar, who himself is slower than both Charles and Norris.

Norris also slightly extending the gap to Charles too, so seems an even stalemate between McLaren and Ferrari here. Cannot see a podium for either driver today on pace alone.