A big potential that didn’t translate into the hoped-for result. In Saturday’s Miami qualifying session at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida, USA, Ferrari didn’t achieve what it had hoped for, ending up with a third and seventh place finish that leaves a bitter taste for the Maranello team, especially since Fernando Alonso managed to place his Aston Martin car ahead of the two Ferrari drivers and the real target of the weekend for Ferrari si clearly to recover points against Aston Martin.
Qualifying remains one of the most exciting and difficult sessions to read throughout the weekend, with hopes and expectations to be played out in a handful of seconds on that limit that every driver tries to chase in search of the perfect lap. Sometimes it is possible to succeed, but other times that same desire to go beyond, to make the impossible possible, leads to a bitter disappointment, such as the clear disappointment in the Italian box after missing out on a front row that would have allowed for a different perspective in view of the Miami Grand Prix later today.
On a track that is expected to be particularly challenging in terms of tire management, being able to start ahead of the Aston Martin of the Spanish driver would have been crucial, immediately putting a generally Sunday-improving AMR23 behind them.
Charles Leclerc’s mistake weighs heavily in the race outcome
Without beating around the bush, the Monegasque’s mistake clearly weighed heavily on Ferrari’s expectations for the fifty-seven laps that are scheduled to be completed on Sunday. On the other hand, mistakes are also part of the search for the limit and Formula 1 is all about minimizing them: often that same “exuberance” behind the wheel is the element that has brought Charles Leclerc to start from the most noble positions in the standings, greatly simplifying the Maranello team’s prospects for the race.
Demanding an entire season without mistakes would be substantially impossible, but this is not and cannot be a justification, and Charles Leclerc himself was the first to understand this, as the Monegasque driver is always very demanding with himself. “It’s difficult for everyone. In two days I made two mistakes in the same corners, so yes, it’s not acceptable. I am always very strict with myself and today didn’t go well. Often in qualifying I manage to extract the most from my car, but yes, it’s the same mistake I made yesterday,” explained the Ferrari driver at the end of the qualifying session in Miami, marked by his crash in the final stages of Q3.
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Same corner, but different dynamics, because in reality the two incidents on Friday and Saturday have few points in common, except for the fact of having lost the rear. If the one in free practice was mainly due to requesting too much from the rear end, bringing a lot of speed through the corners, the one on Saturday is mainly due to the way the Monegasque attacked the “curbs” in the change of direction.
Throughout the weekend it was possible to observe how the SF-23 showed some difficulties in the fast sections, suffering a certain gap from Red Bull, also in this case a real reference point for every opponent. Ferrari has indeed paid mainly for the second part of the sequence, the one where it is very important for the car to have good aerodynamic stability. This was also observed in relation to Aston Martin, which makes overall load its key strength.
“In high-speed corners in particular. We saw Charles hit the wall, and I myself came very close to having two incidents during the third free practice session, in the same place. Our car is rather unpredictable at the moment, we are trying to exploit it in the best way we can, but both I and Charles are really on the limit. Sometimes it happens,” explained Carlos Sainz when asked about the events in qualifying.
Although it is not the main reason for his teammate’s spin, this unpredictability weighs on a driver, with the SF-23 often proving to be on the limit in that area of the track, sliding on more than one occasion. Less margin, greater risk of hitting the wall, and Ferrari also partially paid for this aspect. However, the incident itself is more due to a matter of trajectories, as the Monegasque went to skim that very unevenness at the end of the curb zone, the one that not even the Red Bulls dared to put their tires on.
With a car already at the limit, that small change in height caused car number 16 to “bottom out” against the asphalt and, with the rear already in compression, there was nothing more that could be done to recover the car. It was not, therefore, a matter of speed carried into the turn, which was similar to the previous attempt on Friday, but rather an unlucky dynamic in the search for the last centimeter in an already marginal situation.
A disappointing day, especially in terms of the result rather than the performance, because the Monegasque driver seemed to have all the cards to put his SF-23 in the top positions. This is also demonstrated by the run completed at the start of Q3 where, without the mistake at the last braking point, he would have been able to secure the second spot on the starting grid behind Sergio Perez. Like on Friday, the Ferrari car paid mainly for its “poor” top speeds compared to the RB19, as well as a lower speed in the faster sections, including the one where the incident occurred.
However, the positive aspect lies in the good performance in the slow sections, as already seen in Australia and Azerbaijan: from this point of view, the Maranello car seems to have found what it had lost at the beginning of the championship, an encouraging sign.
Carlos Sainz: a third place with a half smile
While some of the Italian team’s garage looked at a difficult Saturday to digest with more than a hint of disappointment, on the other side there was a half smile, which actually hid a bit of bitterness. During free practice, Carlos Sainz seemed on form, certainly more than he was in Baku, where poor feeling with the car had weighed heavily. Yet, just at the decisive moment, that extra step was missing, the difference that the great champions are able to make.
A difference that Fernando Alonso was able to put on track, second with his Aston Martin. Before the qualifying session, there was not much optimism in the British team’s box, with the Spaniard asking to go back to the lighter rear wing after the not-so-great feedback that emerged on Saturday morning. It did not seem like Fernando Alonso’s day at all, forced in Q2 to mount a second set of soft tires to avoid the risk of ending up outside the top ten. That then pushed him to complete the first attempt of the final round on used tires, and that’s where the magic came out.
“It was a good qualifying, I think FP3 was a bit messy for us. We tried different setups and they didn’t work, but the team obviously put the car in a situation we knew after the first four races and the car came alive in qualifying,” the Spaniard later explained.
On the contrary, Carlos Sainz paid mainly for a tire warm-up phase that was far from perfect, so much so he was sure that with the second lap he could have extracted even more potential from the SF-23 car at the Miami International Autodrome. Looking at the telemetry, it emerges how the AMR23 was able to play its cards where it was expected to perform well, i.e., in the faster sections, like at the Jeddah circuit. This can be appreciated especially in turns 4-5-6, while the SF-23 was confirmed to be more effective in the slow sections.
A performance difference that, however, only paid off to some extent, because it is interesting to note how the Silverstone car showed good top speeds during qualifying, especially on the straight leading to the braking point of turn eleven.
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