ANALYSIS: Qualying performances in the past three years
With the season-opening Australian Grand Prix being just around the corner, F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo looks back at the qualifying performances from the past three season.
In 2022 when the ground-effect cars were introduced, Ferrari appeared to be the quickest team. However, Red Bull managed to get its act together for the second half of the season, albeit the data provided by formuladataanalaysis shows that the Scuderia was the quickest qualifying car.
Interestingly, Mercedes and McLaren never managed to get close to Ferrari or Red Bull in 2022 in qualifying, with their performances having been almost a full percent slower than the field-leading duo.
The pecking order changed significantly for the second season of the ground-effect era. Red Bull dominated the season and the qualifying sessions, but Ferrari remained relatively close to the Milton Keynes-based outfit. In the meantime, Mercedes and McLaren also managed to get closer to the field-leading Red Bull, albeit they were still 0.4 and 0.7 percent behind respectively, considering every qualifying session.
The picture then took a complete turn for 2024. Ferrari changed its philosophy over the winter between 2023 and 2024, producing a car that looked after the tyres more in order to combat the excessive tyre wear that hindered the team in the previous season.
Although Red Bull dominated the opening races at the start of the 2024 F1 season, Ferrari appeared to be the second quickest package at the beginning of the championship. Carlos Sainz managed to convert the encouraging pace into a race victory at the Australian Grand Prix before Charles Leclerc went on to dominate his home round in Monaco.
However, the Scuderia slightly lost its way with an upgrade package introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix. The Italian team quickly realized that the developments generated severe bouncing in high-speed corners which saw the Scuderia struggle for pace through the summer races.
While the first race after the summer shutdown at Zandvoort saw Ferrari struggle for pace in qualifying, the SF-24 suddenly showed impressive race pace. The team then introduced some key developments, including a new floor, at its home race in Monza, and the new package and the nature of the track saw Leclerc clinch his second victory, followed by further strong showings at the subsequent Azerbaijan and Singapore Grands Prix.
The Monégasque then dominated the United Stated Grand Prix to secure his third triumph of the season before his team-mate went on to demonstrate dominant form at Mexico City to add the fifth victory to Ferrari's tally in 2024.
Ferrari's change to philosophy meant that the Scuderia were around 0.30 percent slower than Red Bull in qualifying while McLaren also overtook Ferrari in terms of outright qualifying performance.
By contrast, Mercedes achieved a similar overall performance ratio in qualifying than in the previous season, albeit it saw the Brackley-based outfit slip down to fourth spot in this regard.
