The two Ferrari SF-23 cars couldn’t capitalize on the strong performance during the Mexican Grand Prix qualifying. The Prancing Horse technical team decided to run the race with a single pit stop. This choice paid off only to a limited extent, due to a lack of pace on the Hard tires after the race was halted following Kevin Magnussen’s crash in turn one.
Max Verstappen was unstoppable from the first lap. The overtaking move he made at the start against the two Ferrari drivers immediately set the tone for the Mexican race. Therefore, the less impressive start by the two drivers in the red cars allowed Max to take the lead and secure another victory.
Lewis Hamilton had an excellent race, managing the medium compound tires effectively and securing the second step of the podium. The Englishman utilized the yellow-banded tires perfectly, allowing him to maintain a better pace in the early laps after the red flag and overtake Leclerc. After the overtake, he managed his tires flawlessly and even set the fastest lap on the final lap.
Mexican GP 2023/Analysis 1st Stint: Ferrari SF-23 Very Good at Managing Mediums, Greater Degradation for Verstappen
Today’s analysis is divided into two main sections. The red flag split the race in two, so we chose to analyze the first stint of the top drivers and the second half of the race. The first part of the 71 laps in Mexico illustrates that all drivers in the top positions chose to use the medium tires at the start.
Norris opted for the soft tires to gain positions from the back of the grid. This decision allowed him to recover some positions, although not as many as hoped. The reason for this is the lack of pace on the red tires, forcing him to make the first pit stop after just 8 laps.
The degradation of “both Carlos” was much more consistent. Charles Leclerc managed the yellow-banded tires much better than his teammate, losing about two-tenths from the beginning to the end of the stint. The Monegasque driver was behind the fresh three-time world champion, who was managing his tires.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton experienced a “parabolic” type of wear and lost about half a second compared to the Dutchman during the 1st stint. The Englishman could probably have maintained a better pace by pushing his W14 harder. However, finding himself behind Carlos Sainz’s number 55, he lost a lot of lap time due to cooling his car and then attempting to overtake the Ferrari driver.
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Mexican GP 2023/Analysis 2nd Stint: Ferrari SF-23 Lacks Pace on Hards, Norris Shows Excellent Medium Tire Pace
The second part of the race shows how Norris excelled with his car after the red flag. At the restart, the young Briton was in tenth place but finished the race in fifth. As mentioned earlier, the lap time for car number 4 was high in the early part of the stint due to the traffic in the middle of the group. After making overtakes, the pace of the MCL60 improved with a linear degradation that was negative by a whole second.
In the second half of the race, Max Verstappen had the best pace of all. Despite this, Max showed the worst tire wear among the front-runners. He lost about seven-tenths per lap to car number 1 throughout the stint. Nevertheless, thanks to the significant advantage he had built up earlier, the Dutchman could manage his race to preserve the mechanical parts of his RB19.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Now let’s consider the final stint for Mercedes and Ferrari. The hard tires didn’t deliver the expected performance for the Italian team. The issue was not tire wear but rather a “systemic” lack of pace on the harder compounds. The lines illustrating the degradation of the two Ferrari drivers and that of Lewis Hamilton are all linear, parallel, and negative.
The greater height of the red and yellow lines indicates a larger performance gap for the Ferrari drivers compared to Lewis Hamilton, who set the fastest lap of the stint on the final lap of the race. Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were unable to extract performance from a setup designed to address front-end sliding while also struggling to activate the harder tires effectively.
Mexican GP 2023/Fuel Saving Analysis: Ferrari SF-23 Alternates Between Push Laps and Saving Laps, Mercedes Has the Highest Savings Percentage
Finally, let’s look at the fuel management during the race. Mercedes drivers received great attention for achieving a fuel saving rate of over 7%. George Russell consistently lifted off the throttle pedal more, while Lewis Hamilton alternated between pushing and saving laps. In particular, the green-colored bars indicate significant fuel savings in the middle of the race, while the Englishman pushed harder towards the end of the competition.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
Ferrari had a fuel-saving percentage similar to that of Red Bull. The three Ferrari drivers alternated in saving fuel. Around lap 44 (number 38 in the graph), The Monegasque’s race engineer asked the Monegasque to “save” fuel. You can see that Charles Leclerc increased the coasting phase to over 5%. Norris split his management, saving fuel in the early part of the race and then using the remaining fuel for maximum performance towards the end of the race.
Source: Leonardo Pasqual and Alessandro Arcari for FUnoanalisitecnica
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