Charles Leclerc’s strategy and car setup in the Austrian GP that led to the Monegasque driver’s fifth career victory has a background: at the end of the Sprint Race on Saturday, while the interviews of the top three on the main straight were in progress, both Carlos Sainz and his Maranello teammate went to look at the tires of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB18.
The two Ferrari drivers, who had battled each other in the early laps, were unable to stay with their F1-75 cars in the DRS window of the Dutchman, as Max Verstappen was at a safe distance, also giving the feeling that the leader of the world championship was controlling the “race” and had some margin if Charles Leclerc would have been able to push even more in the final laps of the Sprint race.
Saturday’s short event ended with defeat for Ferrari at Red Bull’s home circuit and it was easy to predict a photocopy race even in the 71 laps of the main event on Sunday, so much so that the Spielberg organizers thought it would be a good idea to create a podium with a platform that would rise up for the winner and which, in their hopes, should have elevated Max Verstappen.
That was not the case: Charles Leclerc was on top of the podium, with a Ferrari that seemed to have shown the pace and potential from the beginning of the 2022 Formula One season, when he was setting the pace thanks to perfect control of tire wear. And, then, how was it possible to transform the F1-75 from a losing car in the mini-race to a car able to dominate on Sunday? The two drivers had noticed in the parc fermé how the wear of the Red Bull tires was evidently greater than that of the F1-75 and at the briefing after the race they pointed this out to the Maranello technicians.
It could have been an insignificant figure but, instead, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s intuition “ignited” the hope that the Red Bull men had succeeded, thanks to Verstappen’s great start, to hide a deterioration that the RB18 then highlighted on Sunday with a full tank of fuel (106 kg of fuel in the tank).
Adrian Newey’s car has an advantage: in the first two – three laps it manages to trigger the tire temperature practically immediately, bringing the tires into the right operating window, offering the drivers the opportunity to build a gap to keep themselves out of trouble when the cars behind can start using the mobile wing.
The intuition of the Ferrari drivers set in motion the staff of the mistreated Iñaki Rueda, the head of Ferrari strategies, who ended up at the center of the controversy after the Silverstone error for not calling Charles Leclerc to the pits. Iñaki Rueda then made a new simulation with data slightly different from what was previously stored.
To improve the entry into the corners for the F1-75 and correct the slight understeer, it was decided to increase the incidence of the front wing, which was perhaps too low on Saturday, in order to give more energy to the tires of the F1-75 cars, without paying too much in terms of maximum speed. The challenge was to bet on a drop in Red Bull’s performance which then promptly occurred during the Grand Prix, regardless of the tyres that Max Verstappen used during the race.
The slight drop in temperature (three degrees compared to the Sprint race) also helped the Maranello team, putting the icing on the cake of a Sunday that cannot be quickly forgotten. Because Charles Leclerc took care of the rest with an extraordinary race management that led the Monegasque to overtake his title rival three times on track, with Max Verstappen unable to react to the clear superiority of Ferrari.
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The ‘Little Prince’ put pressure on his rival immediately, forcing him to keep up a pace that wore his tires earlier than expected, disrupting Red Bull’s plans with a tactic that was decided on Saturday evening.
Only 24 hours passed between a defeat and a great triumph: there is no doubt that Red Bull have done something wrong and now they will have to lick their wounds for the “slap” they took at home, but it is equally true that Ferrari have proved their ability to understand the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses in a race that Ferrari absolutely needed to win to continue hoping to take the fight to Red Bull for both championships.
Ferrari therefore finally is able to collect opportunities when they arise, after having left too many along the way in this first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season. Christian Horner said that the challenge for the world titles will be over after Monza, in the belief that Red Bull can build a solid advantage, while Mattia Binotto expects a hard-fought season until the last GP. The Maranello team principal spoke in no uncertain terms about a Ferrari that will fight to the end for the two world titles, engine reliability permitting.
