Ferrari can’t win anymore. The F1-75 is still fast enough to fight for the pole position, but no longer for the race victory. The speed in the F1-75 is still there, but over the distance the red car eats its tires. That gives all the advantage to Max Verstappen and Red Bull. Monza was no exception, even if Charles Leclerc gave the Tifosi hope with his eighth pole position of the 2022 Formula 1 season. It was deceptive.
Ferrari realized after ten laps at the latest that the game was over in Monza. By then, Max Verstappen had overtaken Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell and reduced the gap to leader Charles Leclerc from 2.6 to 1.2 seconds. “The Red Bull was the faster car today,” admitted Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto. “If we had gone against him with the same strategy, we would never have beaten him.”
Fate awarded Ferrari a VSC phase in the 12th lap. The strategists led by Inaki Rueda took action and at that moment decided on a two-stop race. That was the signal for Red Bull to do the opposite. Team boss Christian Horner admitted that Max Verstappen would have been brought into the pits had Ferrari left the Monegasque on the track.
It was unfortunate that the VSC phase ended just as Charles Leclerc parked his Ferrari to change tires. The Monegasque only partially benefited from the WSC gift. However, it was enough to regain the lead 13 laps later when Max Verstappen had to complete his pit stop at normal racing speed. “Two stops were basically not wrong, because you never know what will happen later in the race. For us, playing poker was without risk,” Mattia Binotto explained. Charles Leclerc’s pace was good enough to stay ahead of third-placed George Russell even with a second pit stop.
Second stop was pure necessity
Charles’ second stint confirmed what the first had suggested. Max Verstappen set a pace that Charles Leclerc could not counter. His gap of initially 10.1 seconds shrank to half within seven laps. When the Ferrari picked up another set of softs on lap 33, it almost looked as if Ferrari were trying to avoid a direct confrontation with the approaching Red Bull. But the second stop was pure necessity. Charles Leclerc could never have finished on the medium tires. And George Russell was comfortably outside the pit stop window at 25.4 seconds.
The safety car at the end of the race initially seemed like a stroke of luck to the Ferrari fans, but when it became clear that the Italian GP would end behind Bernd Mayländer’s Aston Martin, an echo of boos was heard from the grandstands. Although Mattia Binotto was not happy with how the safety car was handled by the race director, he also made it clear: “We would hardly have beaten Verstappen in a short sprint to the end. He had fresh soft tires on it, we had used softs.”
Ferrari could be satisfied with Carlos Sainz’s race. The Spaniard made up 14 positions from 18th on the grid. That was all. Carlos Sainz swept through the field like a whirlwind for the first 13 laps. The Silverstone winner overtook 13 cars as if the phenomenon of the DRS train didn’t exist. Only when he was finally able to drive freely did his tires begin to degrade. The Spanish driver passed his direct opponent Sergio Perez on lap 33. By the time the safety car was deployed, Carlos had reduced the gap to Russell to 7.8 seconds.
In Monza, the picture seen in the last races continued. “Since the Hungarian Grand Prix, Red Bull has been the better car. Not on Saturday, but in the race. Our tires wear faster. They get a better balance than us and we have to work hard to understand that.” This time the front tires suffered. The puzzle is that it wasn’t always like this. At the beginning of the year, the Ferrari was more careful with its tyres.
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Max Verstappen brings the weight of the car into play. “At the beginning of the year we had too much weight on board and it was in the wrong place. Since we’ve slimmed down we’ve found a better balance. The understeer is gone.” Mattia Binotto doesn’t think it’s just that. “If Red Bull had gained just because of the weight, you would have noticed it in the fast lap of qualifying.”
The Ferrari engineers rather suspect the aerodynamics. That the search for more downforce has reduced the working window and thus the setup of the F1-75. That’s why Carlos Sainz made a run in Friday practice with an old floor: “We don’t want to go back there [older floor], but we want to better understand what was different before than now through the comparison,” explained operations manager Jock Clear.
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