Just like Ferrari, the top teams chose the Medium tire compound for the start of the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, which offers similar “baseline” performance in terms of lap time and tends to suffer less from degradation. It’s worth noting that in Austria, the front tires are put under a tough test. This is because many corners have negative banking, which produces a chronic understeer in all cars. One of the keys to being fast in Spielberg, therefore, is to take care of this tendency as best as possible.
Before the race, teams followed different tire strategies. Let’s consider the summary table of the situation after the Saturday Sprint Race. In general, there were many medium compounds available, considered by most as the race tire. Only one Hard compound for everyone except Aston Martin. Several Soft compounds were used, a “footwear” that Max Verstappen used during the final part of the Grand Prix.
Now let’s move on to the technical account of the ninth round of the 2023 Formula 1 racing campaign. During the first laps, the two-time Formula One and reigning world champion, easily created a certain margin of safety over the two Ferrari cars, considered by the Red Bull team as the only threat to victory in Austria.
During this phase, the two Ferrari drivers experienced some issues related to the working range of the tires, as the temperatures of the axles were not perfectly synchronized. Several suggestions were exchanged over the radio, including the awareness of the need to manage the left front tire properly, especially in turn 7, where the compound was subjected to excessive stress.
Furthermore, in the fast corners of the third sector (turns 9 and 10), the tires tended to overheat due to prolonged and increased stress. At this stage, Carlos Sainz seemed to have a better pace than his teammate, which is why he requested a position swap with Charles Leclerc over the radio. However, this request was not granted by the Italian pit wall, who preferred to leave things as they were.
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The graph shown above, produced by the editorial team of Formula One Technical Analysis, compares the sum of lap times during the first stint, effectively showing the average race pace of the various drivers. It’s evident that the Italian car has a slower performance compared to the Red Bull RB19 number 1, with a difference of about 4 tenths per lap. Mercedes had an even worse performance, with a gap to the current leader of the driver’s championship exceeding 8 tenths per lap.
Austria GP 2023: Why didn’t Ferrari split the strategies?
The Virtual Safety Car caused by Nico Hulkenberg triggered the first flurry of pit stops. Ferrari missed the perfect timing to enter the pits since, unfortunately, the two red cars had already passed the pit lane entry at that moment. In the following lap, the double pit stop took place, with both Ferraris equipped with a set of yellow-banded Pirelli tires.
Carlos Sainz did not agree at all, as he expressed upon rejoining the track through a radio communication. In fact, the Spaniard would have preferred to continue his stint to try a different strategy. Indeed, it would have made sense to split the tactics, especially because Charles Leclerc was struggling at that moment. Moreover, the double pit stop penalized Carlos Sainz, as it caused a significant loss of time for car number 55.
With this pit stop, the two Maranello cars attempted an undercut on Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. This is because the Dutchman decided not to stop and continued his race, thinking about managing the tire compounds from the following lap. The same applies to Lewis Hamilton, who chose to make the pit stop due to the enormous struggle caused by chronic understeer, which, in addition to tire management, negatively affected the handling of the W14 car, unable to stay within the track limits.
After the stop, Carlos showed an extraordinary pace, gaining a considerable amount of race time compared to the leader. Looking at the previous graph, we can particularly observe the impact of these laps between Ferrari’s pit stop and Red Bull’s pit stop. On lap 24, Max Verstappen was called for the first tyre change, finding himself behind the Prancing Horse with a brand-new set of Hard tires.
However, the white-banded Pirelli tires were 9 laps fresher, allowing the Dutchman to quickly recover on the Maranello cars and execute two “easy” overtakes thanks to the great straight-line speed of the RB19. Especially in the early laps after the pit stop, Carlos Sainz was extremely fast, lowering his pace after Max’s overtake to manage the tires, as explained by F1 experts Alessandro Arcari and Niccoló Arnerich for FUnoanalisitecnica.
Through the following image, we can highlight the difference in terms of laps between the two tire compounds used in the middle stint by Ferrari and Red Bull. Last year, a few laps difference in the initial stint made a difference for Charles Leclerc’s car. A lead of about 3 laps over Max Verstappen indeed brought clear benefits for the Monegasque driver during subsequent stages.
However, the aeromechanical engineering work produced in Milton Keynes by the brilliant mind of Adrian Newey, mindful of what happened in the 2022 Formula One season, prevented such a potentially detrimental condition from recurring, aiming to immediately gain an advantage in terms of tire lifespan. Carlos Sainz himself had requested such a strategic approach multiple times over the radio.
Austria GP 2023/Ferrari SF-23: The competitive battle with Checo Perez
Carlos Sainz was the first of the Ferrari drivers to make the second pit stop, switching to fresh Hard tires. The pit stop was prompted by the good pace of the Mexican driver, who extended his first stint significantly, having a more performant tire from laps 40 to 45, while the red cars began to struggle with a tire compound that had completed 30 laps. After the stop, Carlos was advised not to push excessively in the early laps to preserve the compounds towards the end of the race.
According to the calculations made by the Ferrari pit wall, the former Racing Point driver was supposed to catch up with the SF-23 car number 55 towards the end of the race. Perez made his pit stop on lap 50, 5 laps after the Spaniard’s tire change. From that point onwards, the pursuit began, with a delta in favor of the red car of about 5 seconds after the pit stop.
Using the graph above, we highlight the laps between Carlos Sainz’s stop (lap 45) and the lap in which Sergio Perez overtook the Ferrari driver. This scenario clearly favored Charles Leclerc, as the available laps for Checo to catch up with him were reduced. From laps 45 to 50, Carlos Sainz was fast with the new Hard tires, while Sergio Perez, from lap 50 onwards, set some really good times with the same tire compound, with a pace between 1:08.2 and 1:08.7.
Unfortunately, Carlos Sainz’s performance deteriorated afterward, as can be seen from the white trend line representing the pace of the driver from Madrid. On the contrary, his teammate did the opposite, preserving the tires as much as possible in the early laps of the stint and then significantly lowering the pace when the Mexican driver started pushing.
Now let’s look at the race as a whole and talk about the race pace throughout the entire competition. On average, Ferrari remained about 4 tenths behind Verstappen’s pace. The two Mercedes cars lost the battle with Fernando Alonso, who maintained a pace about 1 tenth faster than the all-black cars. In Austria, not having the correct setup, they struggled significantly in terms of pure performance.
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