PACE ANALYSIS: How did performance delta help Russell score his third F1 victory?
Mercedes displayed an unexpected performance level at the Las Vegas Grand Prix to clinch their first double victory since the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix. F1Technical's Balazs Szabo delivers his performance debrief after the Nevadan F1 round.
Ferrari were favourites heading into the Las Vegas weekend, but they were caught by surprise on Thursday when Mercedes started to display a shocking performance.
The Scuderia managed to secure encouraging starting positions for the race, with Carlos Sainz taking second and Charles Leclerc fourth for the 50-lap Nevadan round. The Monégasque then had a brilliant start, jumping to second at the first corner while the Spaniard dropped to third.
Although the two Ferrari drivers appeared to be the quickest in the opening stages of the race, their tyre completely fell off the cliff on Lap 8 which forced them to pit for a new set of hards. However, their pace on the hards was impressive again and managed to salvage their day by climbing through the field to secure a third and fourth place for the Scuderia behind the dominant Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
On the way to his third F1 win from 126 Grands Prix starts, Russell had a great start, keeping him out of trouble at the tricky long-radius first corner. Initially, the Ferrari duo made a better impression, with Leclerc and Sainz having been three tenths a lap faster than Russell on Lap 3 and 4. This allowed Leclerc to close in on the Mercedes man, attempting several aggressive moves on Lap 4 which indicated that the Monégasque was confident he would be able to escape into the distance once he picked off Russell.
However, the next lap saw Leclerc suddenly fall behind Russell, with his pace dropping by 1.5 seconds on Lap 7 and a whopping 3.3 seconds compared to what he was able to achieve in the opening stages of the race. Initially, it was believed that he suffered a power unit issue as the last time out he received a fresh PU was the Dutch Grand Prix, which means that he has been using components with very high mileage recently as he tries to see out the season without exceeding his allocation.
It turned out though that he suffered an unusually high degree of graining on his front medium tyres, which prompted him to dive into the pits on Lap 9. His team-mate Carlos Sainz also experienced some graining, albeit not in the same manner, which indicated that Leclerc pushed his tyre too much initially when they were still cold and thus very sensitive to graining.
By contrast, Russell stayed out and posted three laps of 1m38.8s, which was in the same region as the lap time of the top three drivers on the opening laps of the grand prix. Although Verstappen tried to extend his opening stint, as well, he was also 1.5 second a lap slower than Russell on the last three laps of his first stint, but that was crucial for the Dutch driver to rejoin the battle with the two Ferraris after losing some time on the opening laps.
Coming from P10 on the grid, Lewis Hamilton put himself back into the podium battle on Lap 10 and 11 when he found himself in free air. The seven-time world champion posted a 1.39.0s both on those crucial laps, which were over a second quicker than what the two Ferraris were able to achieve on their two last tours of their first stint.
The next two stints provided a very different picture. As shown on the diagram provided by Formula Data Analysis, it is Ferrari's delta that shows how inconsistent their pace was at Las Vegas. The Scuderia's boxplot diagram is much wider than the one of Russell, which is partly down to Ferrari's struggles with graining at the end of their first stint. Interestingly, Sainz and Leclerc managed to climb back to Russell during their second and third stint on the hards which led to the lower part of their performance delta.
Hamilton's comeback is also clearly demonstrated by his own boxplot, with the British driver spending the opening laps in traffic, which led to the higher section of his own pace delta. The Briton spent the majority of his second stint behind the Ferrari of Leclerc, but he found himself in free air during his last stint, and managed to escape from Verstappen and the Ferraris and eat into the advantage of Russell, which is shown by the lower region of his boxplot.
Verstappen had a boxplot of similar width to Russell, as he managed to keep his pace at a consistent level, albeit he was 0.24 seconds slower than the Mercedes driver on average.
His championship rival, Lando Norris, who still had a mathematical chance to clinch his first F1 Drivers' title until the chequered flag fell at Las Vegas, had a tough race as he struggled for a consistent performance during the 50-lap race. He did not overstress his medium during his first stint, and brought them up to temperatures which allowed him to display a fairly consistent performance on the opening laps.
However, he seriously struggled for pace on the hards during his second stint which saw him lose connection to the leading Mercedes and Ferrari drivers and Verstappen. Interestingly, he managed to pick up his speed during his last stint despite being on the same white-walled compound as during his second stint.
