2024 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Luscion]

The dirty air was astronomical, man. I think you are underestimating the effect of dirty air.

For most of the race, Leclerc only had to sit behind Hamilton. Now imagine sitting behind 3-4 cars. You can see the exact same pattern when Piastri reaches the Mercs at the ned, he was literary 7 tenths quicker before hitting dirty air.

Yup, dirty air was horrible at spa, seemed way worse than at any race so far. In this video both Piastri and Norris talk about it, with Verstappen saying he was basically just stuck in a drs train

[Autobahn303]

"Clean air is king!" - Oscar Piastri Spa 2024

[Seanspeed]

It's insane hope much cope that 'free air is king' comment has provided for people here in order to remain in total denial of where Ferrari currently is. The fact that Leclerc even got pole or was near a podium was a miracle. We have the 4th best car and I dont why people keep seeming to want to not accept that.

And I should be clear, being the 4th best car usually means you're fighting for like 6th-10th place. Cuz two cars per team and all that.

[Xyz22]

How many times was Verstappen in DRS range and couldn't overtake Leclerc on Kemmel?

5-6?

The truth is we were clearly and comfortably the 4th quickest car on pace, and that is with the benefit of track position and the right tyre allocation.

In reality, it was Leclerc who probably had his best weekend yet that saved our asses by qualifying so far ahead of where we would've been on a dry Saturday. Otherwise, it was going to be another P7-8 finish, 5 tenths off the leaders pace, pretty much where we were in Silverstone. Moreover, the bouncing destroyed our final stint, with that gone I think we're much closer but still not quite there, maybe a tenth or two away.

I agree.
Piastri in free air when Lewis and Leclerc pitted for the last stint did a 47.9, a 47.5, a 47.0, a 47.6 and another 46.6. For context, Leclerc was lapping in 48.3/48.4. 1.47.0 was Leclerc best lap time in the last stint. Piastri did a 45.8.

In a linear race with McL starting ahead, we would have finished far, far away from them.

[dialtone]

Saying “we have the 4th best car” on repeat doesn’t add any information to the discussion. People have eyes and can see it, it’s not a topic in contention.

how far behind is this car? It doesn't seem that far as thr first 2 stints showed.

The 3rd stint showed its difficulties with bouncing coming back. The real gap of the car is obviously the first 2 stints when working fine and it performs pretty well, given the compromised setup to deal with the bouncing that showed up in the 3rd stint.

The 3rd stint shows how bad it can get, and how quickly, when the bouncing starts. Yes, LEC finished higher than the car deserved, he also started on pole and Sainz should have been right there as well.

In the balance of all of this the car finished 4th, 7s behind, in a race where in the past they lost by 30+, without SC or rain or other items that could influence results.

There are good and bad things to take out of this. That they are aimless or need a miracle are not 2 of those imho.

[Spoutnik]

5-6?

The truth is we were clearly and comfortably the 4th quickest car on pace, and that is with the benefit of track position and the right tyre allocation.

In reality, it was Leclerc who probably had his best weekend yet that saved our asses by qualifying so far ahead of where we would've been on a dry Saturday. Otherwise, it was going to be another P7-8 finish, 5 tenths off the leaders pace, pretty much where we were in Silverstone. Moreover, the bouncing destroyed our final stint, with that gone I think we're much closer but still not quite there, maybe a tenth or two away.

I agree.
Piastri in free air when Lewis and Leclerc pitted for the last stint did a 47.9, a 47.5, a 47.0, a 47.6 and another 46.6. For context, Leclerc was lapping in 48.3/48.4. 1.47.0 was Leclerc best lap time in the last stint. Piastri did a 45.8.

In a linear race with McL starting ahead, we would have finished far, far away from them.

Lap 35-36 where the lap when he had to defend against Piastri

[Vanja #66]

I dont think new upgrades are gonna help, as team looks currently headless in terms of development and other stuff. Stories also that Vasseur are telling are very Binottoesque.
Not to mention other teams are not sitting with their hands tied, they are also developing, and we already spent quiet a big part of budget on upgrade that doesnt work.

I don't think you are following the development race very carefully tbh.

McLaren brought track-specific updates since Miami and skipped on Silverstone update, which is quite telling. They brought one update regarding diffuser since Miami and a minor update for the front wing. That's it for the biggest updates since Miami. They obviously avoid bringing updates they aren't sure will work and because of that they can fine tune their car to perfection on every track since Imola basically. They have a lot of room in their budget for new parts, but they aren't using it

Mercedes brought a new package and had to abandon it immediately as it did not correlate well at all, they have very little information on it and will have a hard time extracting 100% certain conclusion about it after 2 hours on track on Friday. They have brought new parts almost every race this season. They can't keep this pace up for long, if their Spa parts can't be used their next upgrade will definitely be their last and they will start dropping back in the final third of the season like last year.

Red Bull keeps bringing small updates and they rarely deliver as much as they hoped for and they keep bringing them very often. They are in trouble, pressure is building up and if Max doesn't win in Zandvoort all hell will probably break loose. I don't see Norris being capable of picking up the pieces, he's fallen apart completely after Austrian race, so Max will still win his title. So who cares?

McLaren copied RB approach to the floor completely and are somehow making it work better. Are they doing some funny things with flexible floor connection to avoid plank wear and still ride it very low? Yes they are, there's a photo of their 4 massive flexible cushions on the front end of the floor. Is it legal? I can't see why any team would pass a chance to get McLaren design cleared with FIA, so McLaren wouldn't be running it if it isn't legal. In any case - that floor design is approaching it's development limit very fast, while Ferrari has a lot of room to make a few changes and improve even with this car.

Ferrari reportedly used 25% of dev budget for Imola package and another 25% for Barcelona and this is quite aligned with what we have seen in previous 2 seasons. They made small changes to the floor, which can't be more than 5-6% of dev budget and they are using all their new parts actively and they are definitely an improvement over Imola spec. Just compare Sainz' races in Silverstone and Spa. They have at least 40% more dev budget for 3rd big package and probably one final floor spec or a front wing update. Mechanical suspension components are much less costly to make when they are changing them and it's the same for all teams.

As for Vasseur and Binotto comparisons, they are deeply unfounded - to say the least. Binotto failed to protect the team from TD39 oscillation bouncing limits, which hurt them massively and rendered the best chassis to 3rd best at times after summer break. At the same time, he said there's no reason Ferrari can't win every race to the end Binotto was de facto head of PU while he was TP as well, updated PU was detuned and worse than the launch spec in the end. 5 of 6 wins and an easy 1-2 in Silverstone Ferrari missed in 2022 are on him. How many wins did Vasseur's Ferrari miss? Did they ever have the best chassis overall since he took over? Let's not mix apples and oranges, thank you

Saying “we have the 4th best car” on repeat doesn’t add any information to the discussion. People have eyes and can see it, it’s not a topic in contention.

It's not even a 4th best car at all, shared 3rd at worst. Mercedes was slower in Hungary but Hamilton had track position and not even Verstappen could go around. In Spa Mercedes used a higher downforce package than others (equivalent to Jeddah-spec and others went lower), Hamilton was smart to be aggressive at the start to put Leclerc behind him and get out of DRS zone in S2 where he always had 6-7 tenths over Leclerc because of more downforce. Going with more downforce and without top speed advantage was how Max won last 2 races from behind

McLaren didn't open up a massive gap in Hungary and they couldn't easily jump others in Spa. They are not half a second ahead of others, we saw last year what it looks like with RB19. When they are behind, they suffer just like others, when they get clear air they start using tyres and PU more just like others.

Sainz wasn't bad yesterday, but he wasn't spectacular and he still dropped his pace by a full second after getting clear air in first stint and kept it for 8 laps. Contrary to that, Piastri dropped his pace by only half a second in second stint and kept if for 4 laps. Sainz' pace improvement was far more impressive in every way

[Xyz22]

The truth is we were clearly and comfortably the 4th quickest car on pace, and that is with the benefit of track position and the right tyre allocation.

In reality, it was Leclerc who probably had his best weekend yet that saved our asses by qualifying so far ahead of where we would've been on a dry Saturday. Otherwise, it was going to be another P7-8 finish, 5 tenths off the leaders pace, pretty much where we were in Silverstone. Moreover, the bouncing destroyed our final stint, with that gone I think we're much closer but still not quite there, maybe a tenth or two away.

I agree.
Piastri in free air when Lewis and Leclerc pitted for the last stint did a 47.9, a 47.5, a 47.0, a 47.6 and another 46.6. For context, Leclerc was lapping in 48.3/48.4. 1.47.0 was Leclerc best lap time in the last stint. Piastri did a 45.8.

In a linear race with McL starting ahead, we would have finished far, far away from them.

Lap 35-36 where the lap when he had to defend against Piastri

Yeah this was the last stint from Charles. Very consistent but unfortunately slow because of the car.
In the second stint he was lapping in 48.3ish. When Piastri had free air he was able to lap around 1s quicker than Charles. The data is quite clear, Ferrari was nowhere near McL.

[yooogurt]

I'm not going to fuirthe rthis discussion with you.

If the people who are driving the cars can't convince you the dirty air is really bad, and nor the data can, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you should go drive.

Where did the dirty air go on the last stint?
I mean, if the car was suffering from dirty air, then Piastri would have continued to suffer when he caught up Charles and Lewis at the end of the race.

[catent]

I agree.
Piastri in free air when Lewis and Leclerc pitted for the last stint did a 47.9, a 47.5, a 47.0, a 47.6 and another 46.6. For context, Leclerc was lapping in 48.3/48.4. 1.47.0 was Leclerc best lap time in the last stint. Piastri did a 45.8.

In a linear race with McL starting ahead, we would have finished far, far away from them.

Lap 35-36 where the lap when he had to defend against Piastri

Yeah this was the last stint from Charles. Very consistent but unfortunately slow because of the car.
In the second stint he was lapping in 48.3ish. When Piastri had free air he was able to lap around 1s quicker than Charles. The data is quite clear, Ferrari was nowhere near McL.

In response to a post exclusively praising Leclerc for his pace consistency during the final stint (regardless of the car’s overall pace relative to competitors), we get yet another “SEE! CLEAR EVIDENCE THEY’RE THE FOURTH FASTEST CAR!”, and then folks wonder why some posters are bemoaning the constant, incessant, over-the-top negativity in this thread?

A post that exists purely to praise Leclerc’s consistency, while under tremendous pressure, in a car that lacks some overall pace relative to the competition, leads to yet another one of the “fourth fastest” remarks; that’s the capstone example of how misplaced and uncalled for much of the negativity is.

[scuderiabrandon]

I'm not going to fuirthe rthis discussion with you.

If the people who are driving the cars can't convince you the dirty air is really bad, and nor the data can, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you should go drive.

Where did the dirty air go on the last stint?
I mean, if the car was suffering from dirty air, then Piastri would have continued to suffer when he caught up Charles and Lewis at the end of the race.

Piastri did indeed suffer when he caught up to Hamilton, so what is your point. Piastri himself, in his own words, said it took him longer than it should've to pass Charles, which in the same breath he mentioned that he probably overheated the tyres behind him. This information is free for you on to go listen to.

Both drivers are adamant that we are fourth quickest, the data agrees. About half the grid complained about how difficult it was to overtake. All of that is wrong, you are right.

[yooogurt]

Piastri did indeed suffer when he caught up to Hamilton, so what is your point. Piastri himself, in his own words, said it took him longer than it should've to pass Charles, which in the same breath he mentioned that he probably overheated the tyres behind him. This information is free for you on to go listen to.

Both drivers are adamant that we are fourth quickest, the data agrees. About half the grid complained about how difficult it was to overtake. All of that is wrong, you are right.

Point is that Mclaren wasnt the fastest throughout the race.
At the end? Yes, its not new that with empty tanks their car is the best.
On the 1st and 2nd stint, definitely not, otherwise Oscar would catch up and overtake Charles even before the first pit stop, as he did at the end, and no dirty air did not prevent him.
What this has to do with the data and what the drivers said, I dont understand.

[codetower]

Carlos Sainz signs with Williams:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... 2akmtW9uXe

[Fakepivot]

I still can't believe red bull chose Checo or Daniel over sainz..

[Vanja #66]

Point is that Mclaren wasnt the fastest throughout the race.
At the end? Yes, its not new that with empty tanks their car is the best.
On the 1st and 2nd stint, definitely not, otherwise Oscar would catch up and overtake Charles even before the first pit stop, as he did at the end, and no dirty air did not prevent him.
What this has to do with the date and what the drivers said, I dont understand.

True, McLaren are not clearly better than other cars until the final third of the race. Miami to an extent, Imola, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Spa, very different tracks and the pattern is the same. The final third is them being able to push the limit and without the bouncing as fuel drops and cornering speed increase.

Leclerc started second stint with smaller margin over Piastri than it was at the end. Sainz dropped his times by a bigger margin than Piastri did when he was clear in first stint. If McLaren don't have a good Q, they need to wait and hope for something at the end of the race