Carlos Sainz – Lewis Hamilton telemetry analysis shows Ferrari is more than third force. Carlos Sainz – Lewis Hamilton telemetry analysis.

Friday was positive for Ferrari at the Portimao Circuit. In the afternoon, Carlos Sainz’s best time was very good, and above all he showed excellent confidence with the car, which is fundamental on this track. Comparing Carlos Sainz’s best lap time from FP2 with the one of Lewis Hamilton, we also find some interesting points to note.

The SF21 loses 2 tenths and a half to Mercedes only in the central sector, finding practically equal times in the first and third sectors. Even against Carlos Sainz, Hamilton is very fast in the slow corners, but by looking at the times, Carlos is also faster than Verstappen in some places. Particularly significant is the section of turns 7 and 8 where Carlos faces the very fast turn 7 in full, despite the changes in slope and the blind corner, while Hamilton chokes the gas before attacking the brake for the apex of turn 8. A symptom of confidence which bodes well for the Spaniard, who seems to understand the car better and better: this in turn confirms once more that he has good fundamentals.

We also looked at the data from Alpine and McLaren and noticed a very aggressive French car on the Power Unit front, with particularly high levels of acceleration and draw speed , perhaps showing the reason for this Friday exploit. For its part, McLaren seems partially in difficulty , with Daniel Ricciardo who, from the data, simply seems unable to deliver performance for a full lap.

Ferrari could therefore have a good opportunity to be third force of the weekend, not too far from Mercedes and Red Bull. If this is the case, it is obviously still too early to know, especially on a track that does not forgive mistakes and that still has a lot to say in view of qualifying. Without forgetting that reliability will play a key role both in the long term of the championship, but also in many small situations: all the teams, for one reason or another, have expressed concerns in this regard and all give the impression of holding back on power to preserve the power units given the very long season ahead. So much will depend on who decides to risk more from this point of view as well. The fact that the differences in qualifying are smaller than in the race is a symptom that something counterintuitive is happening on the power front and will be worthy of further analysis over the course of the season. Meanwhile, the Portuguese weekend promises to be interesting once again, and given the splendid track it is not a surprise, in a year that, however, seems to be able to offer some nice surprises.