Is the Austrian Saturday a glass half full or half empty for Ferrari? Realistically, there is no definitive answer to this question, as everyone could tell a different version depending on the weight given to the elements placed on the scale. The third-place finish obtained by Carlos Sainz in the Sprint Race at the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, just a few seconds behind Sergio Perez, resembles an injection of confidence that the Red team needed to look optimistically towards a Sunday yet to be written.
On the other hand, the difficulties encountered by Charles Leclerc serve as a warning sign, adding to a rather telling statistic: after Alfa Romeo, the team with the highest delta between the best time set in the shootout and the one recorded on Friday in qualifying is none other than the Maranello team, with a difference of 697 milliseconds. Undoubtedly, there are several mitigating factors that could be taken into account, such as Carlos Sainz not having a new set of soft tires available for the attempt in Q3 or strategic issues, but the raw data is nevertheless significant.
Taking the comparison between the two best laps of the Spaniard as a reference, it is interesting to note how the telemetry traces roughly overlap except for the final sector, where it is normal to highlight a more pronounced drop in performance from a used tire that has already lost its peak grip. It is realistic to hypothesize that with a new set, Carlos Sainz could have shaved off several hundredths of a second, although quantifying it accurately remains a challenging task.
Source: Gianluca D’Alessandro
Even assuming an improvement of about three-tenths, the gap to Max Verstappen would still have remained higher than that at the end of qualifying. This is a fact to be considered in the context of a car that is seeking a new development direction but still struggles with past issues that cannot be resolved in a few months. One of these is the narrow performance window in which the SF-23 can perform at its best, but as soon as the car goes beyond this ideal track, the gap starts to widen, and the difficulties become more evident. This does not mean that Ferrari is not working on it because it is precisely one of the areas the technical group in Maranello is focusing its efforts on. However, every project needs time to address an issue that seems almost chronic at first glance.
If in the first free practice session, the track temperature reached almost 50°C, it then dropped to around 38°C on Friday afternoon, within that ideal range where the Prancing Horse’s single-seater conveyed a feeling of confidence to the drivers, enabling them to push to the limit. This was particularly evident with Charles Leclerc, who in the final attempt challenged the leader of the standings, missing out on pole position by just 48 milliseconds. However, between Friday and Saturday, the scenarios changed profoundly: the arrival of rain that washed the track, as well as a further drop in temperatures, reaching 24°C during Q3, moved the SF-23 away from its optimal operating window.
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The consequences have particularly affected Charles Leclerc, who went from a gap of five hundredths to almost eight-tenths in less than twenty-four hours. After the Sprint, although it was initially wet but gradually dried up, it was the Ferrari driver himself who provided a manifesto of his difficulties: “At the moment, I’m struggling a lot every time it’s half dry and half wet with slick tires, I’m completely out of rhythm. We need to understand why we have been in these conditions for three consecutive races now, and I keep struggling. It always seems like I’m doing something wrong in my driving style that doesn’t help the car, that makes me lose confidence.” – the Monegasque pointed out.
Source: Gianluca D’Alessandro
“The problem is mainly the balance at the end of braking, so on entry or in the corner, that’s where I struggle the most. Especially in high-speed corners, I had some moments where I almost lost the car, and that made it very difficult for me.” Although Charles Leclerc’s words refer to the conditions encountered in the Sprint race, some elements also find confirmation in the Shootout, dividing the considerations into two parts.
Observing the telemetry data of his best laps between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning sessions, both completed with new tires, the first aspect that stands out is how the Ferrari driver struggled in all the fast corners, with a significant performance delta. In the analysis of the “traditional” qualifying, it emerged that Charles Leclerc’s style involved a rather decisive braking on entry, followed by partial throttle application halfway through the corner, almost the opposite of Max Verstappen. This aspect was also present on Saturday but in a different way because when paying attention to the telemetry data, what immediately catches the eye is that Charles Leclerc spends much more time on the left pedal during the qualifying shootout, a sign that he probably needs to modulate the braking differently with a lower peak pressure, more smoothly.
This characteristic can also be appreciated from the speed graph, where the line representing Friday’s qualifying has more pronounced and distinct drops, indicating a more decisive braking. The only fast section where this behavior does not occur is the 7-8 chicane, but in that case, Charles Leclerc gets back on the throttle later and with a different progression, indicating less aggression in the recovery.
Source: Gianluca D’Alessandro
The second consideration, which is more of a hypothesis, is of a technical nature, related to how the cars reacted to the different weather and track conditions. Generally, the Red Bull Ring is identified as one of those “rear-limited” tracks, where rear-end stability plays a central role, not only due to numerous traction zones but also because the rear tends to slide in high-speed corners. However, during the Saturday afternoon sprint race, the limiting factor shifted towards the front, as confirmed by the team radio of several drivers: a change of scenario that may have amplified the difficulties encountered by Charles Leclerc. While this clearly does not explain the issues encountered, for example, in Canada, it could provide an additional interpretation for what happened on the Austrian Saturday.
During the interviews, Frederic Vasseur suggested turning the page and looking with more confidence. The Maranello team expects dry conditions and higher temperatures compared to the sprint day: an important test for the SF-23, which still needs to show that it has found the right direction regarding tire consumption. In the sprint, there was a certain difficulty in fast corners that accentuated tire wear, but not as pronounced as in other races. Carlos Sainz managed to finish ahead of the two Aston Martin cars, while Mercedes remains the big unknown: the cold weather on Saturday helped the car’s balance, but the Mercedes duo believes they have the pace for the podium. It will be an open challenge at the Red Bull Ring this afternoon.
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