Scuderia Ferrari fails to make the impact it desires in the sixth round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Miami Grand Prix, which was held at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida. The missed opportunity is palpable. Lando Norris wins and therefore secures his first Formula 1 career victory, benefiting from the Safety Car, not only changing tires with a free pit stop but also fortunate to find himself ahead of Max Verstappen again. Then we also have to admit that Lando Norris showed a devilish pace, being faster than Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc despite running on old tires, while the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers had already made their pit stop.
The MCL38 car was indeed untouchable even for Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. The Dutchman tried at the restart but could do nothing against a super Lando Norris. Charles Leclerc stayed in the wake of the three-time Formula 1 world champion for several laps, with a pace identical to that of the championship leader.
Unfortunately, however, an insufficient level of end of straight speed didn’t allow him to exploit the long high-speed straights of the American track, and more than the third place couldn’t be achieved in the Miami Grand Prix. Fourth place at the finish line for the other Ferrari SF-24 of Carlos Sainz, who was then received a questionable five-second penalty and ended up in fifth place. Still, the Spaniard lost a lot of time behind Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and this is the main focus for now, as we will discuss the implications of Carlos Sainz’s penalty in a different article.
Before starting the analysis, let’s take a look at the available tire sets before the start of the Miami Grand Prix. Mercedes and Red Bull had one extra set of Hards compared to Scuderia Ferrari and McLaren. Additionally, the two W15 cars had no new medium tires for the race at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida.
From the brief simulations carried out during Friday’s first free practice session, combined with the data collected in the F1 Sprint race, we saw how the degradation of the Pirelli compounds on the track was rather contained, defining the single-stop strategy as the fastest overall. The recommended tactic did not involve the use of the Pirelli red-banded tire at all, a compound that made temperature management very difficult, especially at the rear and over long distances with a high amount of fuel on board. The risk of overheating was indeed very high given its usage window.
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Therefore, most Formula 1 drivers clearly opted for the Medium tire for the start. A tire that represented the best possible compromise between grip, activation speed, and durability throughout the Miami race. Some made a different choice, trying to start the Grand Prix with the Hard compound, such as Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. In this sense, the goal was very clear: to try to extend the first stint of the race as much as possible, hoping that a Safety Car could favor them and perform a tire change to reduce timings and gain race time over their opponents.
In the early laps, Max Verstappen tried to immediately create the usual safety gap, taking advantage of the chaos that ensued at the first corner with the long run-off by his Red Bull teammate. The two Ferrari cars started right behind the Dutchman, a favorable tactical condition to attempt an overtaking maneuver at the first braking zone. Sergio Perez tried to brake very late to recover positions lost due to another imperfect performance in the qualifying session. But the Mexican, surrounded by other cars on both sides, completely lost the right reference point for braking. In the early laps, Charles Leclerc showed a really good pace, enough to stay close to Max Verstappen with an average delta of about 1.5 – 2 seconds from the RB20 car.
McLaren showed very fast pace with the Medium tire and excellent top speed. A combination of these two factors led to Oscar Piastri being able to successfully perform an overtaking move on Charles Leclerc at turn 5. The Australian still had the old aerodynamic configuration, therefore, was theoretically running with lower efficiency, while Lando Norris had the new aero upgrade package which McLaren introduced this weekend in Miami. As mentioned, tire wear was low, so the British cars extended the stint on the yellow tire to shorten the subsequent one on the Hard. It is worth remembering that, given the degradation seen in the early laps, strategists had confirmed the single-stop option.
In this case, it was important to assess the power of the undercut compared to the overcut. The new tire obviously provided an advantage, but the white compound took 2-3 laps to reach the optimal temperature window. Therefore, it was not guaranteed that stopping before the opponent could be an advantage regardless. In numerical terms, by analyzing the stint with the Medium compounds, we observe that the fastest driver was Oscar Piastri, also benefiting from clean air. Max Verstappen showed a very similar pace, as did Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, with his Ferrari SF-24, was running about 1 tenth behind on average.
The Monegasque driver pitted on lap 19 to switch to the Hard tire with his Ferrari and attempt the undercut on Oscar Piastri. The two had a gap of about 3.9 seconds. To attempt this move, which as mentioned was not so potent, the delta between the two had to be smaller. This meant it was crucial for Charles Leclerc to activate the white tire quickly. The Virtual Safety Car (from lap 23) could have ruined the Monegasque’s race, but fortunately for him, it lasted relatively short, so Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen couldn’t take advantage of it. On the radio, Ferrari race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros reiterated to Charles Leclerc that it was a crucial phase in order to manage to pass Oscar Piastri with the undercut.
Immediately after the Virtual Safety Car (lap 23), Max Verstappen also returned to switch to the white-banded Pirelli tire. The Dutchman exited the pits behind Lando Norris, with a 10-second gap to Oscar Piastri. Meanwhile, Lando Norris tried to extend the stint as much as possible, hoping for a possible Safety Car. His pace with the Medium compounds was optimal, and his skill was to keep the set alive for a long time. The British driver was the last to pit, which occurred at lap 29, and then had to complete another 28 laps on the Hard tire to cross the finish line.
Thanks to the contact between the Haas and Williams cars, the British driver of McLaren reduced the pit stop time by about 12 seconds, exiting the pit lane in the first position. Between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris before the Safety Car, there were 11 seconds. During the race neutralization period, the Dutchman lost a full 8 seconds to the MCL38, which made its stop the following lap. The gap increased under safety conditions, so Lando Norris had the opportunity to get ahead of the reigning world champion. So, luck did play a part, but Max Verstappen didn’t optimize the pace, losing valuable time.
At the restart, after the race neutralization phase, the Dutchman tried several times to attack the Englishman. Attempts that were unsuccessful due to the solid pace of the MCL38 single-seater, which proved to be very fast on the straights. Ferrari had a slight disadvantage in terms of pure pace with the Hard tire, struggling a bit more to find consistency in terms of lap time. The gap between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris increased more rapidly than the gap between the Red Bull and Ferrari cars. McLaren was unbeatable.
Quantifying what was seen on the track, we notice how Lando Norris had an average pace lower by a whopping 4 tenths per lap compared to Max Verstappen on the white tire. The MCL38 used both the medium and white compounds very well. With the red tire, however, they struggled a lot, as was seen in qualifying, but thankfully for the team led by Andrea Stella, this compound was not used in the race. Charles Leclerc was only one-tenth slower on average compared to Max Verstappen with his Ferrari SF-24 car, as we can easily observe by examining the data relating to the gaps. The gap delta between these two drivers and Lando Norris gradually increased further.
Scuderia Ferrari suffered from the lack of End of Straight Speed in Miami. For qualifying, they could have lowered the rear load level, but it was decided not to do so as it would alter the tire behavior, which effectively determines the overall degradation. In the race, therefore, the two Ferrari SF-24 cars lacked top speed because, in fact, the pace compared to the Red Bull was there. Potentially, even starting ahead of the RB20, they wouldn’t have lasted long, just because the Austrian cars had higher top speeds, against which it is too difficult to defend at the Miami International Autodrome. They were therefore very weak in maintaining track position.
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
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