Scuderia Ferrari wins the Australian Grand Prix with Carlos Sainz. The other SF-24 car takes second place with Charles Leclerc, completing a historic one-two for the Prancing Horse at the 5.278-kilometre Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne last Sunday. A weekend that turned perfect also thanks to Max Verstappen’s retirement. The right brake of his Red Bull RB20 caught fire in the very early stages of the race, forcing the Dutchman to retire. Sergio Perez is not at all brilliant and finishes 56 seconds behind the Spaniard in the red car, suffering from a loss of downforce following contact at the start of the Australian Grand Prix. The two McLaren drivers try to keep up with the pace of the Maranello car but fail to do so, while the average Aston Martin had to settle with scoring a few points and accept the 20-second penalty imposed on the two-time Formula 1 world champion, which changed the final result at the Albert Park circuit.
To conclude the introduction regarding the top teams, we have to talk about Mercedes, a real downfall in this start of the 2024 Formula 1 championship. The W15 car refuses to work as expected and leaves Lewis Hamilton on foot due to a problem with the power unit. To top it off, as is ironically said in these cases, George Russell crashes violently into the barriers, losing the car in Fernando Alonso’s wake and accusing the former Ferrari driver of dangerous behavior.
For the start of the race, almost everyone opted for the yellow-banded Pirelli, except for Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso who chose Soft and Hard respectively. The Englishman started with the softer tires because being eliminated in Q2, he still had a set of softs available. Fernando Alonso, on the other hand, decided to start with the hardest compound available to extend the stint and try an overcut on cars that, by fitting the Medium, would stop earlier.
Thanks to the data provided by Pirelli, we could observe the graphical summary with the available tire trains at the start. Essentially, everyone had two sets of Hards and at least one set of new Mediums, so the strategy was fairly well defined from the beginning: starting with the yellow-banded compound and then two stints on the white-banded one.
Australian GP 2024/1st stint: the two Ferrari SF-24 cars manage graining well
During the initial laps of the Australian Grand Prix, many drivers tried to manage the first kilometers of the tire life, so as not to immediately put it under pressure. Several drivers then received instructions on the use of the compound, as the fear of graining was clearly real. We are talking about a phenomenon formed by two factors: the track’s characteristic of being clean and, above all, the common tendency to understeer. Ferrari did a great job on this front, especially considering that Saturday, for various reasons, the solidity of the front-end was not optimal.
In the first stint with the medium tire, Carlos Sainz was the benchmark. Since Max Verstappen is not present in this analysis due to the technical problems that ended his race prematurely, we do not have a comparison on this data, although observing Sergio Perez’s times (aside from the issue), perhaps in Australia the RB20 might not have been as strong. The Mexican and George Russell were running on similar times, although Sergio Perez in this instance could not express his pace.
As for the Monegasque driver of Ferrari, we can say that Charles Leclerc, in fact, excluded himself from the fight for victory during this stint, finding himself having to manage the tires and, at the same time, finding a way to overtake a still very competitive Lando Norris. The Ferrari driver was indeed running on the same times as the two McLarens and remained trapped without being able to express the full extent of his potential.
Australian GP 2024 – 2nd stint: Charles Leclerc with the Ferrari SF-24 fails to exploit the potential of the C3
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Charles Leclerc remained tightly behind the McLaren cars, especially to avoid putting strain on the tire, risking to exit the optimal window and compromising the setup. For this reason, on the tenth lap, the pit wall asked him over the team radio, through the “do opposite to Lando Norris” command, to cover the position against the British driver. The McLaren driver continued his pace, and Charles Leclerc returned to the pits to switch to the Hard compound and attempt an undercut, considering the minimal gap to his opponent.
At the same time, Oscar Piastri also stopped to switch to the harder compound in the Pirelli range. Both drivers emerged behind Pierre Gasly, needing to quickly pass the Frenchman to make the undercut strategy effective. In the initial laps on the hard tires, Ferrari’s pit wall provided many instructions on where to save the tires. Specifically, drivers needed to be careful at turns 7, 10, and 12, where the most stress is imposed during a single lap.
Although the Pirelli C3 was the hardest compound, its working range remains relatively low and difficult to interpret. To clarify, we can recall how this compound caused several issues for the SF-24 cars in the opening race at the Bahrain International Circuit, making it very challenging to hit the optimal usage window.
On the other hand, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz pursued the opposite strategy: extending the stint to have an advantage in terms of tire life in the later part of the race. The McLaren driver pitted on lap 15 to switch to the Hard compound, but he lost position on track to Charles Leclerc and his teammate. Carlos had a comfortable gap and managed to maintain his position without much trouble. There was a significant seven-lap difference between the two Ferrari drivers on the white-banded tire.
The Maranello team managed the C3 well, although the direct comparison with Max Verstappen was missing, preventing us from quantifying the progress in terms of tire management. Charles Leclerc mentioned struggling to hit the window with this tire, as he remained half a second slower on average than his teammate. Lando Norris, in this phase, was faster than car number 16, partly because he managed to extend the first stint and shorten the second with the Hard compound.
Australia GP 2024 – 3rd stint: Charles Leclerc improves pace with the Ferrari SF-24 on the second set of Hards
On lap 34 of the Australian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc informed the team that his front left tire was completely worn out and that a pit stop was imminent. On the same lap, he was called in to switch to the second set of Hard tires. The Monegasque driver exited the pits close behind Sergio Perez, but fortunately managed to stay ahead, avoiding Lando Norris’s overcut. Carlos Sainz again tried to extend his lead as much as possible, transferring the advantage to the final stint, which would become the shortest of the race.
Around lap 40, both McLaren cars also switched to their second set of Hard tires. From that precise moment onwards, Ferrari’s race engineers, Riccardo Adami and Xavi Marcos, constantly kept their drivers informed about the lap times of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with the clear goal of managing the consolidated lead and securing the first one-two finish in more than two years.
To macroscopically analyze what was observed, we also look at the lap times: each time is compared to a constant reference point throughout the race. The various stints can be clearly recognized and dissected. In the first stint, it is very clear when Carlos Sainz managed to build a safety margin over his opponents, while Charles Leclerc remained stuck behind Lando Norris, prompting the Maranello team to anticipate the undercut.
The second stint was dominated by Carlos Sainz, who continued to extend his lead, while Charles Leclerc failed to match his teammate’s pace. Only in the final part were the two on the same lap time, but the gap remained constant, and the Monegasque failed to close the gap further. With the second set of Hard tires, Charles Leclerc admitted to feeling more comfortable. However, over the entire race, both drivers showed the same overall average, indicating that car number 16 could have performed better without Lando Norris’s traffic.
Finally, let’s examine the data that allows us to observe the performance levels in the Austrian Grand Prix. Ferrari had the faster car, with McLaren not too far behind, as the average gap was about a tenth per lap. Sergio Perez’s Red Bull trailed by nearly six-tenths per lap from Carlos Sainz‘s car. Aston Martin and Mercedes, on the other hand, struggled during the race, trailing by almost 1 second per lap on average.
Source: Alessandro Arcari and Niccoló Arnerich for FUnoanalisitecnica
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