What a disaster for Scuderia Ferrari in the ninth round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship. The Maranello team leaves Canada with a double retirement for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at the end of a weekend that should have delivered us an updated SF-24 car capable of fighting Red Bull and McLaren for victory, which was once again taken by Max Verstappen and contested by McLaren and Mercedes, with the team led by Toto Wolff being the real surprise of this weekend at the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. Instead, the reality showed that the red car was not competitive at all, due to various factors.
The only bright spot of the Canadian campaign was Friday, when Ferrari seemed capable of making a statement in terms of race pace simulation. There is a strong sense that something changed in the setup on Saturday morning, as confirmed by team principal Frederic Vasseur, who did not hide the fact that there was a problem with the setup choice, which apparently also compromised the tire work on Saturday.
Sunday, which started with rain, immediately exposed some previously hidden issues, such as the reliability of Charles Leclerc’s power unit. On the other hand, it seems that beyond the failure, the SF-24 single-seater would not have been able to fight for important positions anyway. Everything was too flat in a weekend where the Maranello team, with all due respect, didn’t understand a thing.
At Ferrari, they now have to deal with a very nervous Charles Leclerc and rightfully so. Already during the disastrous qualifying session on Saturday, the Monegasque driver showed signs of frustration: evidently, the harsh reality was not well absorbed by the Monaco Grand Prix winner, who found himself with a difficult-to-drive, non-competitive Ferrari car and a power unit problem in the race that cost him about 80 horsepower. Certainly not ideal after having to start from the midfield zone.
Charles Leclerc had to struggle with his SF-24 for the entire race until his retirement: between very heated team radio exchanges with his new Ferrari race engineer Bryan Bozzi, who tried to calm things down as much as he could, and constant work with the steering wheel in order to find a solution to fix the power unit issue, number 16 of Ferrari is expected to have a big headache this Monday upon returning to Europe. There will be investigations, especially since the continuous changes of the power unit in recent weeks inevitably trigger more than one alarm bell in Maranello.
Charles Leclerc, after his retirement in Canada, mentioned that they often change components on the power unit, which is not a great sign. He emphasized the need to analyze the problems they had in the race, as he was unsure what happened but noted that he was losing between a second and a second and a half on the straight. The race was very difficult for him as he had to do a thousand things on the steering wheel. On a dry track, everything levels out, but he was losing too much time and at that point, he realized his race was over.
It was not any better for the other Ferrari car, that of Carlos Sainz. According to Frederic Vasseur after the race, the Spaniard suffered damage to the floor at the start after a poor launch from the starting blocks, losing positions and effectively compromising his race 100%. As long as the conditions were wet, Carlos Sainz’s SF-24 didn’t go well, but it began to perform slightly better as the track dried.
At that point, however, came the big mistake at turn 7, which ended the race for both Carlos Sainz and the unfortunate Alex Albon, who did everything possible in order to avoid the Spaniard’s SF-24 but couldn’t. Yesterday, Carlos Sainz knew it would be a tough weekend for Ferrari in Canada, but he certainly didn’t expect all these difficulties, considering the overall positive recent weekends.
After the race, the Spanish driver stated that he had no pace. With the intermediates, he honestly expected to do better, but they were never competitive this weekend in any of the conditions they faced. With the slicks towards the end, he was able to go a bit better, so he took more risks, and when he pushed harder, he spun. He emphasized the need to analyze the whole weekend.
When in the middle of the pack and behind a drag reduction system train, even if you’re faster, you can’t show it, and you can’t do more because you’re in the middle of dirty air. Carlos Sainz was at the end of a group and did everything to gain positions, but then he made that mistake. He noted that it’s a sign, meaning that when you push and don’t have confidence in the car, mistakes come, and that’s what happened this weekend at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal.
In short, Ferrari needs to quickly forget the Canadian Grand Prix: the Maranello team perhaps needs a good dose of humility, because the euphoria of winning the Monaco Grand Prix probably led the whole team in the wrong direction. It could be a blip, it’s understandable to get nothing right in a race weekend, but it would be serious if this happens again in the near future. Head down and keep working, because as someone said, nothing has been achieved yet: Ferrari wasn’t phenomenal yesterday, and they’re certainly not failures now.
The Italian side may have achieved a dominant victory in Monte Carlo, but they are clearly not yet ready to make the big leap towards the Formula 1 world championship. The Canadian Grand Prix showcased this in a dramatic fashion, shattering all the most optimistic predictions. After the most disastrous qualifying session of the year, Fred Vasseur had offered some hope, stating that they expected to recover and to be competitive in race pace both in dry and wet conditions. However, this turned out to be a significant miscalculation, as the Ferrari SF-24 cars were not competitive at all and after 10 laps, both cars were trailing by over 40 seconds. It was a disaster compounded by engine problems for Charles Leclerc and a mistake by Carlos Sainz due to poor grip, resulting in neither car finishing the race. This race was theoretically one where Ferrari was favored over Red Bull and the Maranello team arrived in Montreal with the goal to reduce Charles Leclerc’s deficit to Max Verstappen, in a highly optimistic attempt to get back into the title race.
But unfortunately it didn’t happen that way, because the big winner was Red Bull with a masterful Max Verstappen, who showed great race vision, had a textbook restart after the Safety Car and proved exceptional mental fortitude, in an exciting Grand Prix where an excellent George Russell also led for a while, finishing third with a stunning overtake on Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris, who finished second, 3.8 seconds behind the Dutchman.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
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