In a thrilling Russian Grand Prix qualifying session, Scuderia Ferrari took a gamble by changing to slick tyres in the final stages of the session and it eventually paid off. Qualifying was uncertain for several hours and began in wet conditions, but in the final minutes, Carlos Sainz and the Maranello team decided just the right time to switch to slick Softs, which allowed him enough time to do two laps to get them up to temperature for a fast lap. This decision contributed to the Spaniard posting the second fastest time at Sochi Autodrom. It was his best ever Formula 1 qualifying performance.
Charles Leclerc made the cut out of Q1 but then decided to stay in the garage, taking into consideration the difficult track conditions and most importantly the fact that he will in any case be starting from the back of the grid, due to his power unit change.
For Carlos Sainz, it was an impressive qualifying performance: after struggling on the Intermediate tyre in the earlier stages of the session, before the circuit dried at the end, the Spanish driver he was able to come back strong and put together a great lap time of 1:42.510, which was beaten only by the McLaren of Lando Norris. The Ferrari SF21 car showed that it still requires more grip to find performance, as the Italian side decided to go for a higher load (similar to the Montmelo/Monaco configuration) on Charles Leclerc’s car during Friday practice, yet the Maranello team discarded it on both cars today for a setup that might better suit them on a dry track.
Alongside the good result of Carlos Sainz on the grid for the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari will turn its attention to evaluating the upgraded power unit on Charles Leclerc’s SF21 car. At the end of Friday practice, Charles confirmed that the progress was felt by him in the car, and at the same time showed by the telemetry data.
According to the information gathered by formu1a.uno, the improvement Scuderia Ferrari expected at Sochi Autodrom was judged to be around two and a half tenths. It is not just a net power improvement, but also a gain in overall performance as a result of a smaller and lighter battery, that gives the Maranello team the opportunity to better distribute the load over the car, improving the margins in terms of balance. The weight saving of the newly specified battery (ES) as well as its better efficiency had already given promising results on the dyno – with even more significant gains expected after the 2021 Formula One championship when the upgrade will be fitted to the car for which it was designed, the 2022 project.
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