Could Ferrari have won in Brazil without driver penalties/problems?

For Scuderia Ferrari, the 2022 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix weekend hadn’t started in the best possible way. In the atypical Friday qualifying, as a result of the Sprint Race format for the Sao Paulo weekend, the Maranello team had ended up in the eye of the storm due to a bad strategic management with Charles Leclerc in the final part of the qualifying session.

However, between the Sprint and the main race at Interlagos, Scuderia Ferrari managed to maximize the results given the current form of the F1-75 cars, finishing Sunday’s race in third and fourth place.

The performances were certainly better than those seen in Mexico City, but this was widely expected also because at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Ferrari had to limit its Power Unit, given the much lower altitude as compared to Interlagos. Clearly taking Mexico as a benchmark was blatantly wrong, as that weekend was one of the low points of the F1-75. In Maranello they even believe that that was the worst weekend of the whole season, even more than Spa.

In Brazil, however, the F1-75 cars returned to good performance levels, showing how the work of understanding car is going in the right direction after the introduction of the dreaded Technical Directive 39. However, something continues to be missing for Ferrari to return to winning ways, having once again finished behind a charging Mercedes.

Ferrari’s choice to start on the mediums was in some way rewarding the good work done both on the Maranello simulator and by the men in red directly on the track. In fact, the car was performing strong, not the fastest but with a pace similar to those who had chosen the Soft as the tire for the first stint, especially taking into consideration the fact that the Soft was clearly the compound which worked best in Brazil. The medium tyre could not guarantee that level of performance and above all was unable to mark an important difference in terms of degradation, even with a track temperature almost 15°C higher than in the Sprint Race of the previous day.

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Scuderia Ferrari decided to use it at the start of the race, i.e. at the hottest moment on the Brazilian asphalt and with a heavier car that allows more energy to be discharged onto the tyres: “We chose the mediums at the start because the asphalt was 15°C warmer than on Saturday. Towards the end of the race the temperatures would have dropped, returning to values similar to those of the Sprint Race, where we had seen that the Soft worked well while it could have suffered more degradation at the start due to the heat” – said Mattia Binotto in the classic post-Grand Prix press conference.

Ferrari knew they weren’t starting as favourites at Interlagos, with some question marks regarding tyre management in various parts of the race, knowing that temperatures could drop significantly. In short, it was necessary to “do something different” compared to the opponents, as stated by the Ferrari team principal, in order to create an advantage in the second part of the race.

The Scuderia performed well on the tyres, also because of a compromise in Brazil which aimed to limit wear thanks to less overheating issues. This, however, limited Charles Leclerc in the Sprint by not allowing him to move up the standings quickly. The F1-75 still defended itself admirably, however, it lacked 2-3 tenths to be at the level of the W13, albeit battling with a clearly underperforming RB18 this weekend.

The encouraging signs that Ferrari can bring home are those of improved competitiveness in terms of race pace as well, even if this is not enough to aim for victories and, even in Brazil, Mercedes confirmed its superiority. There was also good feedback in the central sector, the more twisty one, where the pre-Technical Directive F1-75 would certainly have impressed, but where this version of the car also performed well.

The work of (re)understanding the setups, alongside the modified floor brought to Japan are bearing fruit, allowing the Maranello engineers to find a better set up, more suited to the characteristics of the track. “I would have been curious to see Charles up front, without the incident with Lando Norris” – Mattia Binotto clearly pointed out. The Monegasque, together with Max Verstappen, was in fact the main competitor for the Mercedes duo, even if the Ferrari boss clearly admitted that the pace of the W13 was slightly better, so victory would still have been unlikely for Ferrari: “The Mercedes cars were very fast here and overtaking Perez was difficult. Without Checo we would have been closer and more in the fight but I don’t think we would have managed to win”.