Massive bump slides at Spa: the six millimeters that put Ferrari in a difficult position. The six millimeters that put Ferrari in a difficult position .

The performance of Max Verstappen in particular and Red Bull overall in Belgium made Ferrari and Mercedes roll their eyes. The RB18 cars were unstoppable at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps both in the qualifying session and in the race, with Max Verstappen recovering at an unbelievable pace from the 14th position on the starting grid to take a comfortable win.

Was it a step forward for Red Bull? A step back from Ferrari and Mercedes? Or both? The hypotheses behind such a weekend in favor of the Milton Keynes team are many and the question is whether this is an exception or whether this domination will be the constant in the final part of the 2022 Formula 1 season.

There is no lack of elements that lead to the first option, that is, whether it is an exception. Surely Spa-Francorchamps is a perfect circuit to enhance the strengths of a car like the RB18 which is able to count on a lot of aerodynamic efficiency. Scuderia Ferrari tried to respond by loading the set-up to be faster in the second sector, the mixed one characterized by changes of direction and fast corners, but also in the second sector Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez had no rivals. Why? German magazine Auto Motor und Sport underlined a not secondary aspect, which is the uniqueness of the Belgian circuit.

The presence of two massive bump slides – in the compression towards Eau Rouge and at the exit from the Stavelot corner – required all teams to raise the cars by 5 or 6 millimeters compared to the ideal set-up that would be adopted if the track were perfectly flat. The 039 technical directive did not affect this aspect, by default the teams have to run ‘higher’ in Spa-Francorchamps. Belgium was no exception. The 5-6 millimeters instead moved the operating window for Ferrari and Mercedes, which therefore found themselves affected by this ‘morphological’ peculiarity of the circuit that winds through the Ardennes forest. “This put Ferrari and Mercedes in a window where their aerodynamics no longer provided the downforce they were used to,” writes the German magazine.

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Ferrari and Mercedes had to stiffen the suspension and this presented led to a loss in terms of mechanical grip. A combination of factors which, as Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto pointed out, on a circuit like Spa-Francorchamps in fact doubles the gap in terms of lap time, turning three tenths into six. In any case, Mercedes is also worried in view of Zandvoort: even if in the Netherlands the cars will have to be raised again more than expected, then Mercedes may once again encounter at the level of operating window of the tires and the downforce, according to AMuS.