Just a few days after the Mexico City Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari has moved to another famous city in the Americas, for the first São Paulo Grand Prix. The name is new, but the track that hosts the 19th round of the season is a classic: the José Carlos Pace circuit in Interlagos, named after the Brazilian who actually won here in 1975. It has already hosted the Brazilian Grand Prix 37 times and is the most visited track outside Europe after Montreal, the venue for 40 Canadian Grands Prix.
The disappointment expressed at the end of the last race is a clear signal that things could have gone differently. There’s no need to look at it differently and Mattia Binotto himself, team principal of the historic Italian team, sincerely stated the truth: at the Hermanos Rodriguez circuit, the SF21 cars failed to maximize the weekend.
“Regarding Mexico, I said it would be a track on which we would do better, but in the end it wasn’t like that. Since I did not get it right, I’ll say that in Brazil we will not do well. Who knows if it’s not the other way around” – the statesments of the Ferrari boss ahead of the Interlagos race, even if in an ironic way, reiterate the disappointment from last weekend.
The men from Maranello have thoroughly studied the data collected on the Mexican track and what they have learned is the awareness of being able to transform the limiting scenario experienced during free practice into a positive experience. Although it may be quite trivial, it should be emphasized that the problems related to the suboptimal performance of the SF21 concern the balancing of the car.
The set-up changes lasted during all practice sessions: before qualifying, the choices made did not fully satisfy the drivers of the red team. Carlos Sainz’s slightly heavier setup has undoubtedly produced a better configuration which at least allowed him to manage the compounds adequately over the course of the race.
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While for Charles, despite the failure to reach the ideal lap in Q3 (mainly due to an unfortunate final attempt), the fine-tuning of the number 16 proved to be decidedly more fragile in the race. In this respect, a negative comment on the car’s balance in the fast corners at the end of the Fp3 was sounded as an alarm bell.
At a power unit level, Ferrari expects positive feedback. Although compared to other tracks the energy recovery values obtained under braking and through the enthalpy of the exhaust gases may be lower, we can assert with certainty that the incidence of the two motor generators will be very noticeable during the lap. The efficiency produced by the hybrid system, therefore, will be severely tested.
Although the latest specification has undoubtedly brought advantages by widening the set-up window and also granted more strength in the attack and defense phases using the overboost, from a lap time point of view, the performance of the Reds has not completely achieved the expected step forward which everybody hoped for. The Maranello’s technicians are studying and at the same time learning how to maximize ERS.
In addition to the capacity of the new batteries in the phases of accumulation and release of recovered energy, a factor that has allowed a better use of the K2, K1 and K1 Plus, the Prancing Horse engineers are looking for the optimal setting of the hybrid system to maximize its efficiency in relation to the power deficit that the internal combustion engine however suffers compared to the top class.
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