Red Bull confirms its return to the top after Ferrari’s surprise victory with Carlos Sainz last weekend in Singapore. Despite the introduction of TD018 (unrelated to the performance deficiency in Marina Bay) and the update to TD039, Red Bull asserts in Japan that they were unaffected by the measures taken by the Federation.
Today, the RB19 remains well-balanced with a very high level of vertical load. The car excels in the long-radius corners of T1, especially in various changes of direction, where other cars show some uncertainty. When Verstappen changes direction in the “Snake” sequence of corners, the car is highly agile and maintains high minimum speeds, allowing Max to gain significantly in this regard.
The Red Bull also appeared more composed when traversing the curbs of the final chicane, where they used to lose some traction. In terms of ground clearance, they seem to have lowered it slightly by a few millimeters, which allowed them to find the ideal setup for the car.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Looking at the major sectors, Max Verstappen dominated on the entire track today. Red Bull also improved the performance in the second sector, where they seemed weaker yesterday. In fact, the top spot went to Charles Leclerc, who now sits in third place.
In this sector, the Ferrari was slightly off the pace of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, preventing them from securing the front row. Ferrari has not made significant changes to the SF-23 setup, so the telemetric data is similar between practice sessions and today.
In terms of handling, the car is quite balanced, but it lacks rear downforce. What the Italian car is definitely lacking is stability when cornering at high speeds, which was already pointed out on Friday. Despite good balance, the lack of downforce limits the car’s cornering ability.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
The comparison in the micro-sectors between the two cars is shown above. The first sector is dominated by the blue color of Red Bull. The segments highlight an advantage during the corner entry phase, while the Ferrari comes into its own during the exit phase, maintaining good traction even at around 200 km/h. Turn 9 is Ferrari’s territory, while yesterday, they lost a good deal of minimum speed.
The straight leading to the hairpin is highly segmented. This suggests that the two cars were almost evenly matched in that area. It’s worth noting that on Friday, the RB19 #1 was able to reach the braking point for turn 11 with a few more km/h. Ferrari has since worked on both the setup, which they had already adjusted, and the driver’s performance. In some parts of the track, Charles Leclerc still had room for improvement to shave off further fractions of a second.
Additionally, the RB19, compared to the first two practice sessions, used more aggressive settings for their endothermic engine and ERS. This is also confirmed by the data related to maximum and minimum speeds.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Today, car number 33 reached a top speed of 335 km/h, compared to 330 km/h in the second practice session. That’s a 5 km/h improvement between sessions. On the other hand, Ferrari recorded a top speed of about 330 km/h in FP2, and today they had a positive margin of about 3 km/h. Interestingly, Oscar Piastri had a top speed of 331 km/h compared to 322 km/h yesterday, while his teammate reached 325 km/h. The situation regarding minimum speeds remained largely the same.
It’s interesting to see that George Russell and Hamilton produced such low minimum speeds compared to Ferrari and Red Bull. Generally, in slow corners, they manage to have good mechanical grip. However, they also struggle in fast corners compared to Red Bull and McLaren. Yesterday, the team aimed to improve the S1 section. One possible explanation is that they may have stiffened the suspension system (anti-roll bars) more to achieve a more stable aerodynamic platform, even if it means losing some low-speed cornering ability.
As we can see from the graph below, the average speed at low speeds supports Mercedes’ strategy, which involves improving performance in the slow section to take better advantage of the ground effect in fast corners, providing a more stable vertical load.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Analyzing the usual graph of average speeds by corner type, we notice a significant increase in speed gap in the fast corners between Ferrari and Red Bull. If yesterday, Verstappen’s average speed in the fast section was 236 km/h, it has now risen to 342 km/h today. The SF-23, on the other hand, has increased its speed by only 2 km/h. In comparison to McLaren, the difference is not bad at all.
The McLaren team had to address several aspects of the car on Friday, especially because they knew they could improve sector times in T1, but they couldn’t immediately find the right setup. They had to adjust the ride heights to find a balance that would make the MCL60 the car closest to the RB19 in the fast T1 section.
However, from the data, it doesn’t seem that way since the RB19 manages to achieve 10 km/h higher speeds on average in the fast section. This suggests that they might have had further room for improvement in certain parts of the track.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
In conclusion, the graph above represents the real strengths in the field. The times are the “ideal” times, calculated by adding the best sector times for each driver. McLaren is about three and a half tenths behind Red Bull, while Ferrari is almost seven tenths behind, making it difficult to secure the front row today. The first Mercedes is nearly one second behind. After the practice sessions, they decided to focus on improving T1, but there were no notable improvements on the track.
Source: Alessandro Arcari and Niccoló Arnerich for FUnoanalisitecnica
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