In the 2023 Formula One season, it has already happened, for one reason or another, that if you’re not named Red Bull – more precisely Max Verstappen – you can enter the weekend as a Pope and leave as a Cardinal. It happened to Ferrari after the excellent Friday in Montreal, just as it happened after the promises of Monaco, but also to the competitive Aston Martin during the Barcelona weekend. A championship whose title fight has already been brutally put on ice by the dominance of the Dutchman, who, as predicted, reached a magical number in Formula 1 in Canada – the number of Ayrton Senna’s victories. The next target is Alain Prost.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to think that the drivers’ championship will be decided soon, leaving room for a more closely fought battle for second place, especially due to Sergio Perez’s crisis. The talented Mexican driver has been paying a seven-tenths-per-lap gap to his team leader, and the surprising thing is that he couldn’t get closer to the Ferrari cars in the second part of the Canadian Grand Prix at the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal , despite having the clearly superior race tire, the mediums.
On the other hand, Alonso, Mercedes, and Scuderia Ferrari were separated by only two-tenths of a second in terms of pace, in favor of the Spaniard. Max Verstappen, on the other hand, only had the worry of managing front brake overheating after hitting a seagull. This may have prompted the Austrian team to suggest a brake balance shift towards the rear, which is not ideal, for example, at the tight turn 10.
Compared to 2022, this race shows a rather modest but consistent performance improvement of about three-tenths for both Red Bull and Ferrari. It’s not surprising that Mercedes made a significant leap forward, recovering eight-tenths, not to mention Aston Martin, which is in another dimension with the AMR23 this year. This suggests that the RB19 might have started to manage its technical advantage, as explained by F1 expert Giuliano Duchessa for formu1a.uno.
The repeated weekends that were far from perfect for Ferrari have justified their aspirations to approach the fourth position in the midfield. Nevertheless, Alpine’s goal of joining the battle has failed for now. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were six-tenths faster than Esteban Ocon, adjusting their race pace under similar conditions with a good strategy that took them out of the midfield train.
Ferrari: Balance is Needed On and Off the Track
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Ferrari was certainly at least the third force on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, and the result was good considering the starting position of the drivers, but at the same time, it doesn’t completely reflect their performance.
The Maranello team inevitably paid for their black Saturday – which will be discussed behind closed doors – and could have fought for the podium if they had managed to qualify with both cars ahead of Fernando Alonso, using slipstream in Sector 3 for defense. The SF-23 was the overall best car in terms of top speed on the straights – without DRS – reaching 315 km/h, nearly 10 km/h faster not only than Mercedes but also Aston Martin, which was carrying a heavy load.
As expected, the circuit largely played into the hands of the Reds, and Frederic Vasseur’s caution in the post-race analysis is justified. The Canadian layout does not feature critical high-speed corners that have previously destabilized the car’s balance.
When it comes to braking and accelerating, the SF-23 is a good car with little drag. The correlation is good, and the engineers have to struggle to maintain a positive bouncing condition. After that, the entire package benefits, leading the drivers to be more aggressive. The gap to Red Bull, comparing it to the mileage in Melbourne, was similar, but the tire degradation has improved.
The modified floor seen in Barcelona, heavily modified on the side edges, is going in the right direction, but every package requires time and kilometers to be better understood and utilized.
However, according to internal sources, the 2024 tire tests have provided positive mileage, but they were more focused on gathering data for aerodynamics rather than degradation. The new tires are designed to work in a wider usage window, with different starting pressures and lower temperatures, requiring set-up options that are quite different from the current ones. Sunday’s good response is mainly the result of a growing understanding, as well as the favorable track conditions.
We can conclude that the engineers are returning to Maranello with positive signs in terms of consistency, even considering a not-so-negative race like Baku, where there was a controlled but significant decline in pace. On the other hand, without getting carried away by easy enthusiasm, we know that the additional technical interventions mentioned by Fred Vasseur will clearly go in this direction.
Since Bahrain, we have seen a Ferrari, which we could define as “old style,” presenting two cars: one for qualifying and one for the race. It will be necessary to find a new balance in the coming weeks, in a period that promises to be interesting – both on and off the track – as currently, the technical path, to be shared with the drivers, is more important than individual performance.
Meanwhile, testing continues to implement the development of the new tires without tire blankets. Pirelli has formally confirmed that on June 15th, it received the renewal of eligibility from the FIA to continue supplying Formula 1. It was obviously a necessary but essential step, also in view of the commercial challenge to secure the new supply contract from 2025 onward.
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