The finger seems to be pointed at the operating window of the tyres (front especially) but it doesn’t totally explain the difficulties encountered by Scuderia Ferrari in the 2021 French Grand Prix at the Paul Ricard track.
The SF21 from the tests showed its strenghts and its weaknesses, as we could not hope to totally overturn what we saw in 2020 but the signs were mostly encouraging. The Italian car is not the one of the poles in Monaco and Baku, we have already said, but neither is the one seen in France.
“I don’t think the French GP reflects the true pace of the car or the performance itself, but it’s something we have to learn and deal with, not in the immediate future but in the medium and long term,” Mattia Binotto said a few hours after the French GP.
Paul Ricard reminded us that there is still a lot of work to be done, including on management errors and strategies, although steps forward have also been taken in this area compared to previous years. One example was Charles Leclerc’s second stop, to put him unnecessarily lapped in the middle of Hamilton and Verstappen: wasn’t it more useful to leave him out, also to check the return of performance that Charles was signalling even with a bit of surprise?
For what seemed like a real return to life of the front tyres that were finally cleaning themselves of the massive graining. The Monegasque, after a horrendous pace even on 1.41, was down to 1.39 after 20 laps. It might have been interesting to get some more feedback on the car’s behaviour, on why – as in Baku but to a much worse extent – the tyres were starting to perform decently after too long and when the tread is less than a millimetre thick.
The explanations must be sought, as at Portimão, in the slipperiness of the track. The difference is that in Portugal it depended purely on the asphalt, while in France it depended on Sunday’s conditions, with the heavy rain that fell in the previous hours making it very green and slippery.
For the SF21, having sufficient grip on the asphalt is crucial. That’s the important difference between Paul Ricard and Montmelo, where Ferrari was third force of the lot rather serenely.
Then it’s clear that the SF21 needs to get down to low speed in order to traction and perform better than its rivals, at least the direct ones. Agility is one of its great characteristics, but that goes out the window in wide-open corners. Moreover, it can’t be a coincidence that at both Algarve and Provence, Carlos Sainz performed better than Charles Leclerc in qualifying.
Unlike Charles Leclerc, we noted from Bahrain – and then again at Imola – that Carlos always prefers to enter corners hard, paying more on the exit. It’s a question of style, confidence and consistency. The longer corners favour this attitude because the single-seater is in ‘continuous insertion’. The sharper the corner, or even in chicanes, the more Charles seems to make a difference with his ‘V’ turns.
It’s a positive difference because there is a compensation between the two that can improve their respective skills. Nevertheless, in qualifying the performance always shows something positive, why?
First of all because it’s better to have speed than to be flat and stable. Certain aspects, such as the rims Mattia Binotto spoke about at the end of the weekend, cannot be improved, but it must be considered that with a more rubberized track we would have seen a harder-fought battle with Mclaren. What Ferrari expected. Certainly not the ease (4 tenths) with which it was ahead of the MCL35M in qualifying.
“We know that we are not yet where we want to be on the race pace: we will prepare as best we can and continue to do so in the coming weeks to give our drivers an increasingly competitive package,” said Laurent Mekies himself in the post qualifying session.
The grip reset laid bare that the SF21 is not a car for every condition. On several occasions so far we have seen a car immediately ready to pull out times, except at Portimão and Paul Ricard. In Maranello, in the run-up to the French weekend, they had worked almost exclusively on improving what had not worked in Azerbaijan, namely the ‘race pace’.
They arrived at the track with a very, very race-oriented set-up. Friday’s two free practice sessions made it clear that it was difficult to extract the right performance on a dry lap. More laps were needed to find the performance, which then came. Not a problem on Friday, certainly on Saturday. Hence the decision, for FP3, to go with a more aggressive set-up (more exhaust), which would make the SF21 slide more, turning on the tyres faster and extracting more performance as a result.
This was indeed the case, even if Charles Leclerc noticed those annoying understeer problems right from the start, which didn’t bode well for Sunday’s race (and which didn’t go away even if he continued to ‘click’ the front wing). In qualifying, in fact, a more oversteer-oriented set-up is usually chosen to be more neutral in the race.
The understeer was then exacerbated on Sunday by a tarmac with very little grip and much lower lateral forces in the race, which doesn’t help to warm up the heart of the tyres, especially the front ones which are obviously not as stressed by traction as the rears.
“In Barcelona the race pace was not a problem. However, it’s clear that we have a very narrow working window on our front tyres, so we tend to struggle a lot more than our competitors when there are conditions where graining can form or when front wear is higher,” Carlos Sainz said in the post GP interview.
In hindsight a more loaded set-up would have been more useful to push the tyres and not slip too much. Alpine and McLaren are proof of that. But it must also be said that Ferrari didn’t expect so much water before the GP. A drop in temperature would have helped (the rears), but not such an important reset in the grip of the track.
Even doing an aerodynamic comparison on Friday could have provided some more data, although the track deteriorated markedly between Saturday and Sunday.
On the more positive occasions in the race, the SF21 was better placed than Mclaren, but it didn’t quite realise what it could. The difference in points should be sought there rather than in yesterday’s disaster.
Given the car’s characteristics, more negative events should not come as a surprise.
In Austria, weather uncertainties permitting, it will become more important to have good traction at low and medium-low speeds, such as coming out of the C3 and C4 above all. It’s not a track that’s hard on tyres, at least in the first round where Pirelli will be bringing C2, C3 and C4 to the track. In the second instead it will move to C3, C4 and C5, so a softer grade as a selection. “Spielberg is a different circuit, a track where the differences in qualifying are very small. I think it’s a better track for us than Paul Ricard,” said Mattia Binotto, TP of the Italian team, in the post weekend briefing.
“We won’t be as competitive as Monaco or Baku, but we think that a better performance than we had in France is feasible, depending on what the weather conditions will be,” he continued.
According to the Italian media, Mattia Binotto will be absent in Styria while he will return for the second round at the Red Bull Ring the following week.
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