Jock Clear, who is currently the Driver Coach for Charles Leclerc and also a Ferrari senior performance engineer working, feels the Maranello team’s F1-75 fuel load was the key difference that affected the Ferrari and Red Bull race pace on Sunday in Austria as compared to what could be seen in the Sprint race one day earlier in Spielberg.
Several pundits and most part of the media felt Red Bull would cruise to victory on their home track in the main race after seeing Max Verstappen take what seemed to be an easy win in the Sprint race, but that proved not to be the case. The Dutchman kept the lead after the race start, but as the race progressed, tyre degradations was managed a lot better by the Ferrari cars and Charles Leclerc first passed the RB18 of Max Verstappen on lap 11, in what proved to be the first of three overtakes by the Ferrari man on his Red Bull counterpart.
The pace advantage which Charles Leclerc had over Max Verstappen had the media questioning why Ferrari was not able to show a similar performance on Saturday during the Sprint race. Jock Clear explained that the difference in fuel load had a big impact on how the F1-75 and RB18 performed in the Austrian Grand Prix:
“I think we felt yesterday (Saturday) we were more competitive than we looked,” Jock Clear said in a discussion for the F1 Nation podcast. “We had good pace yesterday but we weren’t able to really close the gap in those 23 laps because tyre deg hadn’t become a problem. Don’t forget, you start on a much lower fuel level so the stresses are much less. Today (Sunday) you’re starting on full tanks and immediately the advantage we had on tyre management was clear from the very early parts of the race. So that didn’t manifest yesterday and I think was the difference today.” – he added.
The pace was there for Ferrari to secure a one-two finish at the Red Bull Ring, but sadly more technical issues affected the F1-75 cars in the final part of the race and Carlos Sainz had to retire with a power unit failure just as he was overtaking Max Verstappen, while his Maranello teammate encountered throttle issues that threatened to cost him yet another victory, after the Monegasque driver lost the Spanish Grand Prix and the Baku race due to engine problems.
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Jock Clear admitted that Scuderia Ferrari have been “living on the edge” but was relieved to see Charles Leclerc take his first win since the Australian Grand Prix:
“Oh my god, oh my god,” the 58-year-old replied when asked how he had felt in the final part of the Austrian Grand Prix – “With what we’ve had in the last four races, you just think what can happen next? What looked like it could have been a minor issue to start with, you think ‘okay, this is gonna go one of two ways – we’ll just get it home or it will just give up completely’. And luckily, it made it home. But my god, we were living on the edge, weren’t we? He wasn’t getting the braking he wanted so he was just braking early and leaving himself a bit of margin. But of course, when you’ve got Verstappen behind you, on the same tyres closing in, you have to make a judgement on how much you will back off. He managed it very well, but of course it’s always in his head ‘okay, this is what it’s doing now, there’s clearly something wrong, will it get worse or will it suddenly stop working completely?’ That really messes with your head.” – the Ferrari senior performance engineer concluded.
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