Ferrari disoriented by a car that is unpredictable and continues to disappoint

This wasn’t what Ferrari hoped to achieve on what was expected to be a friendly Hungaroring track. Carlos Sainz missing out on Q3, and Charles Leclerc finishing sixth (behind the Alfa Romeo of Guanyu Zhou) is a very disappointing outcome that significantly lowers the expectations they had at the beginning when they believed they could fight for pole position.

The SF23, a car that Maranello would like to forget quickly, had at least managed to bring some smiles on Saturday afternoon in the first part of the 2023 Formula One season. However, in the sunset of Budapest, Ferrari finds itself behind a Red Bull (which is understandable), a Mercedes, two McLarens, and an Alfa Romeo.

“Our performance today has nothing to do with the new format,” Frederic Vasseur made it clear, but the reasons for the tough Saturday can still be found in tire management.

The suboptimal tire management is more of an effect than a cause, and here we come back to technical aspects. You can’t expect a Formula 1 car to perform well only in the absence of wind and with thirty degrees of track temperature because, at best, such a scenario materializes a couple of times a year.

“We struggled to have a clear picture before the session, and I’m not satisfied because I believe we didn’t do a good job in terms of tire management,” Fred Vasseur admitted.
“I don’t think the car is slower on a single lap,” Charles Leclerc explained, “but it is still too sensitive to changes in wind conditions, like today and at Silverstone, where we suffer a lot. Every time we find ourselves in these conditions, we struggle more than others.”

At the end of the qualifying session, the Scuderia’s team principal appeared less confident than usual, and that’s because the race tomorrow doesn’t promise anything good. The track temperature is expected to reach fifty degrees, the wind in Budapest never completely disappears, and the layout of the Hungaroring is not known for favoring comebacks unless the gap to the car ahead is at least one second per lap, a scenario that seems difficult to imagine.

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“The track conditions tomorrow will be completely different from Friday,” confirmed Vasseur, “which means we’ll all go into the race a bit blindly since this morning we did a limited number of laps with fuel onboard. The first laps tomorrow will be crucial because it’s very difficult to overtake here. As we’ve seen in Formula 2 and Formula 3, long trains of cars can form, and DRS further complicates the situation. It will be an interesting challenge for which we’ll have a lot of work to do tonight.”

There will be a chance to work on strategies, the tire compounds to be used in a race that is expected to involve at least two pit stops. However, the setup is fixed, and there is no margin for intervention. “We see surprises every weekend,” confessed Charles Leclerc. “I didn’t expect to start behind an Alfa Romeo, and I have no idea what their race pace will be. In the end, one thing is certain: tire management will be everything. If we do well in that aspect, we can expect a good race, but if we struggle on that front, we’ll spend the time looking in our mirrors.”

In the other half of the box, Saturday was even worse. For Carlos Sainz, the main problem was the management of the medium tire compound, which was mandatory in Q2 and penalized him, especially in the first sector. “I didn’t feel comfortable with that compound throughout the weekend,” Carlos explained. “Every time I used it, for some reason, I couldn’t get a good performance in T1. I had the feeling that the tire was harder than the hard compound, so I knew that Q2 would be the most difficult session for me. After a good Q1, I found myself sliding and couldn’t put together a good lap.” Carlos Sainz is facing a race today that will be anything but easy: “It won’t be easy with traffic and high tire degradation.”