The battle for the second spot in the Constructors’ World Championship continues to be highly competitive with five races left until the end of the season, pitting Scuderia Ferrari against Mercedes. There’s a relatively modest 28-point lead in favor of the Anglo-German team. This might not have been the case just moments before the Qatar Grand Prix kicked off at the Lusail Internatioanl Circuit last Sunday.
At that point, one Ferrari SF-23 car had already been sidelined due to a fuel system leak, and Mercedes appeared to be outperforming the Italian team in terms of race pace. However, the incident involving Lewis Hamilton, who later retired, and George Russell at the start allowed the Italian side to significantly mitigate the damage and avoid losing more points to its rival.
Despite the first lap incident with Lewis Hamilton, George Russell executed an impressive comeback, securing additional points for the Brackley-based team, but Ferrari can still find a glimmer of hope in one of the 2023 Formula 1 season’s most challenging races.
The tough nature of the Lusail International circuit for the SF-23 was anticipated even before the Maranello team arrived in Qatar. However, Ferrari was not prepared for a weekend of this magnitude. There was optimism that the limited track time and the usual extensive simulator preparation could work in favor of the Italian car, as it had in previous races with the new format (Sprint Race). Regrettably, the work carried out by the various teams at the factory proved to have limited impact once they hit the track and faced the new asphalt.
Enrico Cardile’s team of technicians had been diligently working on the SF-23’s aerodynamics in recent months, leaving the car’s mechanics, which are more costly to develop, largely unchanged. The structural constraints of the chassis and transmission made it impractical to introduce modifications mid-season, similar to what McLaren had done. In essence, the Maranello technical team had limited room for improvement. Substantial and expensive changes will only be implemented during the winter, as previously announced by the Technical Director, Enrico Cardile, who has hinted at a revolutionary car compared to the current SF-23.
Despite the high temperatures and a high-energy track featuring numerous fast corners, many teams encountered difficulties with tire warming in Qatar. This challenge primarily affected Ferrari, which struggled significantly, especially with the front end – one of the various weaknesses of the 2023 project. Maranello had expected to face such issues but not to the extent witnessed. Charles Leclerc remarked after the race, “We didn’t anticipate struggling so much here in Qatar. We knew McLaren would be out of reach, but we believed we could challenge Mercedes and Fernando. We managed to do so with the latter, but not with Mercedes. They were considerably faster, as evident from George’s comeback.” The unique characteristics of the new asphalt, combined with the ever-present sand on the track that rendered it even more slippery, favored the W14’s performance while the SF-23 lagged behind. This was due to the necessity of generating significant aero-mechanical grip at the front end – a limitation for the Italian car but an advantage for Russell and Hamilton, particularly with a high-downforce setup.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection! Click here to enter the F1 online Store and shop securely! And also get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
Consequently, an even more front-biased setup, which accentuated the SF-23’s front-end limitations, demonstrated Charles Leclerc’s adaptability and the instability that drivers encounter when the Italian car is forcibly configured with such settings to protect the front end as best as possible in view of the Qatar weekend. This issue has been discussed before, primarily by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in the last few months, with the Monegasque being particularly vocal about it.
Last weekend served as yet another confirmation. During Friday’s qualifying session, Ferrari’s drivers entered the first sector with cold tires, resulting in an often substantial half-second delay. This delay was partially mitigated but not fully compensated for in the remainder of the Lusail circuit. As a result, both Charles Leclerc and his Maranello teammate found themselves trailing, not just behind McLaren and Mercedes, but also behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso. During the Qatar Grand Prix, this issue translated into a lot of tire graining, particularly affecting Charles Leclerc during the second stint, which was completed on used Medium tires. During this phase, the graining had already become an issue, and the SF-23 struggled to recover from it, losing any chance of fighting against George Russell or trying to stay close to the McLaren cars of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, as explained by F1 experts Paolo D’Alessandro & Piergiuseppe Donadoni for formu1a.uno.
Leave a Reply