A Sunday to forget, and it could not be otherwise. Carlos Sainz eleventh, Charles Leclerc sixteenth, a deficit of eighteen to zero in direct confrontation with McLaren, a stage haul that brings the English team back to third place in the Constructors’ championship.
That Paul Ricard was not suited for Ferrari on a Sunday with big goals began to appear clear after the first ten laps of the race, when both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc (respectively in fifth and seventh position at the time) began to suffer very high degradation, especially on the left front tire.
Confirmation of the problems encountered by the drivers via radio came on lap 14, when Charles Leclerc was the first driver to pit, switching to a hard set. An unequivocal sign that tire management would have been much more complicated than expected, but the extent of the problems that affected Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s race was more evident in the second half of the race, when the two SF21 cars became easy targets for everyone that came behind them, slipping quickly out of the top-10.
A very hard lesson for the Scuderia, confirmed not only by the order of arrival but also by other very indicative data. In the ranking of the fastest laps of the race Carlos Sainz was only faster than Tsunoda and Mazepin, while Charles Leclerc climbed a few positions thanks to the set of Medium tyres from a second pit-stop. However, the Monegasque driver was still however slower than Lando Norris and Sebastian Vettel, who at that moment had only made one pit stop.
“We tried the second pit stop card to try to improve the situation with a fresher set of mediums – explained Charles – but not much has changed compared to the first stint: good the first three or four laps, then it started again, a very strong deterioration.
The understeer seen in qualifying (especially for Charles Leclerc) on the fast lap was fixed by the new tire, but in the race Ferrari was unable to fix the problem, also due to a colder and less rubberized track than expected (especially in the first stint) due to the rain which fell in the morning.
“We struggled a lot with the degradation from the first laps and we carried this problem with us throughout the race, regardless of the compound used – I was unable to maintain the starting position, despite all my efforts. We have to analyze what happened, understand the problem and try to deal with it in the best possible way.” – Charles explained.
In the long-runs completed on Friday, no alarms relating to the grip of the tires had actually emerged, but it must be considered that with the reduction of free practice sessions from ninety to sixty minutes, the race simulations are reduced to sequences of eight or ten laps at most, a distance that is not always sufficient to identify any problems.
The conditions, combined with the asphalt of the Paul Ricard, made the French Grand Prix the most complicated race of the season for Ferrari, going well beyond the worst foreseeable scenario. “A very difficult Sunday – admitted Mattia Binotto – which sees us returning home empty-handed. The performance of the tires heavily influenced our race. It is a bad setback, which must serve us as a lesson but, above all, as a further motivation. It is also on the experience gained in races like this that a stronger team is built.”
Now in Maranello they will have to clarify the reasons that led to an alarming situation. It cannot be ruled out that a problem of this magnitude was caused by several unfavorable circumstances, such as temperature, track and setup. But in view of the double Austrian trip, certainties are needed, especially that Paul Ricard remains an isolated episode, to be quickly forgotten.
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