A setback. Ferrari took home a sixth place with Charles Leclerc in Portimao, while Carlos sadly finished outside the points, eleventh, after starting fifth.
The balance is therefore negative because the Maranello team had the ambition to challenge Lando Norris’ McLaren, when they should have played a defensive match, aware of their limits.
The Algarve track should have been more favorable to the SF21 than it was with the Englishman’s MCL35 M which, without missing a beat like a veteran driver, climbed to third place in the drivers’ championship. Chapeau, Lando!
But the technicians from Maranello, perhaps, overlooked a fact that should have made them reflect: the race was held with an asphalt temperature of 40 degrees.
Temperatures that were never reached during the weekend: the SF21, we know, suffers from the heat. Beyond a certain threshold the car “eats” the tires. And it was so also in Portugal, as in Bahrain. If you want confirmation just look at the gap from Hamilton: it was one minute in Sakhir and we are 55 seconds in the Algarve with a safety car, with Carlos Sainz coming close to being lapped.
A blatant step back, but the balance could perhaps have been better, had it not been for the act of presumption to mark Norris. The undercut attempt made by Carlos Sainz on Lando Norris was a gamble. On lap 20 the Spaniard was 1 ”7 behind the Englishman’s McLaren. To succeed in the undercut, the only chance was to use the mediums, which happened punctually, even if the first stint of Charles Leclerc, who started with the yellow tyres, had indicated very clearly that it was the least suitable compound for the SF21.
The attempt did not pay off because Norris lost only a second and Carlos went to 0 ”7, before starting a bleak second part of the race, pursued by all those behind them.
In some ways it seemed to review the Ferrari of Abu Dhabi 2010, when with Fernando Alonso the Maranello team decided to focus only on the Red Bull of Mark Webber, losing sight of that of Sebastian Vettel who later became world champion. The strategists tried to gain a momentary overtake on the McLaren “fetish”, without taking into account the more general context of the race.
And this claim has cost dearly, because with the hard tyres Carlos could have scored points. Friday’s performance was partly deceiving: the SF21 equipped with the new modified floor had led Ferrari to be third force, while McLaren seemed to be in trouble. But the new piece, which was worth a couple of tenths, was only available in one example so it was decided not to use it in qualifying and in the race to avoid favoritism between the two drivers. It is a solution that the two will have in Spain where it could make a difference.
Carlos Sainz was able to invent a “magic” lap in qualifying by placing the SF21 fifth on the grid, while the other Carletto was already struggling with the problems that emerged most evident in the race in the heat.
In short, Ferrari lost sight of Portimao’s goal and team principal Mattia Binotto did well to point out that it was an exaggeratedly ambitious attitude. Portugal, however, highlighted that they need to work hard to find a solution to for the tyre wear in the heat. With the arrival of summer it will be a constant that the engineers of the Racing Department will have to deal with.
McLaren consolidated an 11-point lead in the Constructors’ World Championship. For now the fight for third remains between Ferrari and McLaren. The others, in fact, are missing: Alpine, which is fifth, 29 points behind Ferrari, with Aston Martin and Alpha Tauri even further apart. But if the ambition is to challenge McLaren, we will need to find something to protect the tires when the asphalt is hot.
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