At the moment in Formula 1 there is a world apart, populated by Red Bull, capable of winning and imposing itself undisturbed even in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit, achieving their fourth consecutive victory and third one-two finish in this year’s championship. A world so close yet so far, that at times the rest of the grid seems almost able to touch, especially in qualifying. However, on Sunday, the Austrian side takes off in a race of its won, becoming unreachable for any other team.
If on Saturday, over a short distance, Charles Leclerc tried to make his presence felt as much as possible, resisting the blue duo, in Sunday’s race, Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen quickly clarified the situation, smoothly cruising towards another one-two finish. On the other hand, it also seemed evident from the beginning that, if in the sprint the Monegasque was able to dare something more against Red Bull, on Sunday in main Grand Prix, the objective was not to fight Red Bull, but rather to confirm the status of second fastest car on the grid at the Baku City Circuit.
On Saturday, Fred Vasseur had spoken of “concretization,” an aspect which was missing in Australia, while in Azerbaijan, Ferrari was able to put on the scoreboard the efforts of the last few weeks. Among the narrow streets of Baku, the first podium of the season finally arrived, breaking a drought that was starting to become uncomfortable, not only in terms of results but also for morale.
A third place finish that the Prancing Horse hopes will give a boost to their season, although the road ahead is still long and challenging. The SF-23 performed well on a circuit more suited to its characteristics, but the curiosity mainly focuses on those updates coming in the next Grand Prix.
The key word is “management”
Undoubtedly, a central aspect of the weekend was Charles Leclerc’s performance, a true beacon for the Ferrari team from the first qualifying run to the last lap of the race. The double pole position gave a glimmer of hope, highlighting how the SF-23 is capable of performing well on a single lap, while the degradation on long runs remains the most urgent issue that has to be addressed.
This is nothing new compared to previous races, but what is interesting is putting into perspective how this podium was achieved, especially since there were no shortage of opponents. In the early stages of the race, Charles Leclerc quickly came under attack from the two Red Bull drivers, and then tried to maintain his pace to prolong the stint on medium tires and make a one-stop strategy feasible.
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Although it is true that Ferrari had briefly tested the hard tires during practice, the limited data collected during the weekend, which also had different temperatures from those expected for the race, led the team to rely more on simulations prepared “in-house.”
The entry of the Safety Car following De Vries’ accident had somewhat changed the plans of some teams, forcing them to bring their cars back to the pits a few laps earlier than planned. The interesting aspect comes after the restart, with about thirty-five laps still to go until the checkered flag: Charles Leclerc immediately began to maintain a consistent pace, between 46.5 and 46.7, within a delta of about two tenths.
A stable pace had indeed allowed him to pull slightly away from Fernando Alonso, just enough to avoid being in the DRS zone, but without pushing too hard, especially in a very delicate phase of tire life. It is precisely in this part of the race that Ferrari has suffered the “classic” two-second disadvantage from Red Bull that has also been observed in other races.
This is where the importance of qualifying also arises. On a particular track like Baku, where staying in the dirty air in the central sector has a significant impact, being ahead allowed Charles Leclerc to set his own pace and manage his opponents from a position of strength, while Fernando Alonso was forced to keep several meters distance to avoid excessively damaging his tires in the early stages of their life.
A well-planned management by Ferrari, which became even more interesting when the Aston Martin man tried to get closer to the Ferrari driver just before the thirtieth lap. Charles Leclerc was able to react quickly to the Spaniard’s faster times, starting to improve his pace by over half a second. By looking at the telemetry data, it can be noticed that in just a few laps, the Monegasque began to maintain a higher speed in almost every turn.
Although Fernando Alonso was able to get close to the limit of the DRS zone due to a small mistake by the Monegasque, the problems arising from trying to stay in the slipstream for so long on a track like Baku emerged once again, that is, difficulties in managing tire overheating.
While Charles Leclerc was able to gradually lower his lap times with less fuel on board, the Aston Martin driver was forced to take a step back, detaching himself from his rival in order to bring the tires back to the correct operating window.
This process actually took more than a few laps, as the covers on the number 14 AMR23 remained close to the temperature peak for a couple of laps. But it was precisely during that phase that Charles Leclerc then build a decisive gap, definitively securing the third step on the podium in Azerbaijan.
During the interviews given at the end of the race, Fernando Alonso stated that Ferrari was lucky thanks to some elements that played in their favor, such as the gradual drop in track temperature over the 51 laps.
This is objectively true, given that the reference temperature dropped by about 7°C during the race, but it actually had minimal impact on the overall performance of the Ferrari SF-23 single-seater. This is because partly the hard compound proved to be extremely effective in terms of durability with all the cars, and partly because what made the difference was the good management of the pace in the crucial phases.
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