In the Ferrari garage, the management of the Interlagos weekend has been focused on ensuring the best possible conditions for the start of today’s Grand Prix. Leclerc managed to place the car in the front row on Friday (putting in a lot of effort), and the team made sure to tackle the 71 laps scheduled for today without leaving anything to chance. The Prancing Horse engineers sacrificed the starting position in the Sprint race by saving a set of soft tires, which Charles Leclerc will have at his disposal today, along with two mediums and one hard, the same availability as Max Verstappen.
However, Charles Leclerc doesn’t aim to bother the world champion; trying to keep up with Max Verstappen would likely be a suicidal race strategy. The goal is to build a significant margin in the first stint to manage a potential response from Mercedes, the direct opponent, from a distance. “We decided to partially sacrifice today’s race in view of the Grand Prix, and we’ll see if we played our game well,” confirmed Frederic Vasseur. “We didn’t use new tires in the Sprint qualifying, so tomorrow Charles will have a set of new Softs; Carlos will have one with just two laps on them, and both will have two sets of Mediums.”
Fred Vasseur limited his comments to tire analysis, but it’s not just a matter of tire management.
Like Mercedes, Ferrari is hoping that the temperatures at the Interlagos circuit will drop from the 27 degrees (50 on the asphalt) recorded before the start of the Sprint race. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz drove a significant portion of the 24 laps yesterday afternoon, releasing the throttle well before the end of the straights to allow the power unit to breathe a bit more.
“In the Sprint, we had to struggle more than expected,” admitted Carlos Sainz. “We had to manage the engine temperatures, which forced us to lift and coast considerably from the early stages of the race, which obviously affected our performance.” – he added at the end of the Brazil Sprint race.
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The problem is due to an overly optimistic calculation of the cooling system and becomes more evident when Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc find themselves behind other cars.
For Charles Leclerc, starting from the second position, the issue should be less pressing than yesterday. For Sainz (starting from the seventh place), much will depend on the start and the management of the early laps.
Carlos Sainz, on paper, should be more exposed, and the Scuderia’s strategy will likely focus on ensuring as many laps as possible in clean air. If the weather then provides a gift by bringing temperatures back below twenty degrees, all the men in red will breathe a sigh of relief.
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