Scuderia Ferrari gave it a try, but once again, they didn’t succeed. In the qualifying session for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix, the SF-24 car lost its spark due to some ineffective adjustments made by the Ferrari technicians from Friday to Saturday. Instead of improving performance, they worsened it, making the front end less stable. This measure, combined with the challenging tire interpretation regarding the warm-up strategy adopted, didn’t allow the Prancing Horse to extract maximum performance in qualifying. On the contrary, it limited it. Fortunately, if we want to see the glass half full, the three-place grid penalty received by Sergio Perez for impeding Nico Hulkenberg in Q1 puts Charles Leclerc on the second row for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park circuit. Without further ado, let’s examine various telemetry data to learn more.
Australia GP 2024/Corner Analysis: Ferrari SF-24 Excellent in Slow Corners. Red Bull Exploits Downforce
The data collected from qualifying illustrates the average speed in three types of corners, relative to drivers in their fast laps. It’s evident that in slow corners, Carlos Sainz has the best speed, managing his SF-24 excellently. Car number 55 handles understeer fairly well, while Charles Leclerc’s feeling is not as good and he struggled with understeer after some changes made to the front. The two McLaren cars of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri also perform well in the slow corners, benefiting from the mechanical grip of the suspension.
Mercedes, Red Bull, and Aston Martin have slightly lower and similar speeds, with Max Verstappen lagging behind Carlos by 6 kilometers per hour in the slow corners due to a slight mistake. In the intermediate speed corners, Charles Leclerc achieves the highest performance, exploiting the SF-24’s potential between turns 1 and 4. The Monegasque driver gains between 2 and 4 kilometers per hour on most opponents, with Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris posting the worst performances in this area of the track.
In high-speed corners, Max Verstappen dominates, thanks to a Red Bull RB20 car that is capable, like the McLaren MCL38, of extracting a lot of performance from the increased load generated in the fast corners. Carlos Sainz’s data is affected by his mistake in turn 10. Due to oversteer, the Spaniard lost 19 kilometers per hour compared to Max Verstappen. Therefore, his actual performance in fast corners should also be around 260 kilometers per hour.
Australia GP 2024/DRS Analysis: Ferrari SF-24 with Effective DRS
Continuing the analysis, let’s focus on the top speeds achieved by the drivers in the qualifying session for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix. In the first sector with drag reduction system available, the Red Bull drivers achieve the highest speeds, with the Dutchman having the highest speed differential, similar to Oscar Piastri. Sergio Perez reaches the highest speed thanks to an excellent exit from turn 14, despite having one of the lowest differentials. Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc and George Russell fail to exploit their mobile wing device to the fullest due to higher entry speeds. In turn 9, we get a more indicative value of the efficiency of the mobile wing device. We observe that the speeds at the beginning of the DRS zone are more consistent.
Observing the data and most importantly the differences, it appears that Red Bull and Ferrari have the most efficient drag reduction devices, with a gain of around 30 kilometers per hour. Sergio Perez also utilizes the best exit speed to achieve the highest top speed. The telemetry data gives us a general understanding of who achieves the best top speeds: like yesterday, the RB20 car is the fastest, with both Ferraris managing to reduce the gap. Other cars show slower performances due to higher drag, trailing by about 6 kilometers per hour behind the two Austrian cars.
Australia GP 2024/Fp3 Long Run Analysis: Graining Causes Tire Wear for Red Bull. Ferrari Hopes to Close the Gap
Lastly, let’s look at the high-fuel simulation, comparing the two Red Bull drivers to Carlos Sainz based on data collected from the final free practice session at the Albert Park circuit. The Spaniard, with less fuel, confirmed good tire management for the SF-24, experiencing minimal degradation. With this simulation, albeit in a reduced stint, Carlos Sainz wanted to point out uesterday that the Italian car has the potential to challenge the world champion team. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez again faced tire degradation issues in Friday’s long run. With a full tank, there was a significant increase in lap times in the final part of the stint, which could be an encouraging sigur for the Maranello team.
The problem for Red Bull stems from graining generated by the car’s front axle due to understeer. In qualifying, we saw that after some setup changes, understeer was limited, which is also excellent for the Grand Prix. Only tomorrow’s Grand Prix will tell if this improvement will be enough to limit RB20 wear or if Ferrari, considering Sergio Perez’s penalty for impeding, will have a slight chance of fighting for the race win with the Dutchman.
Source: Alessandro Arcari and Leonardo Pasqual for FUnoanalisitecnica
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