Scuderia Ferrari’s approach to this weekend was clear right from the start, with a lower downforce rear wing in an attempt to improve straight-line speeds and, taking advantage of the grip of the new tires, get a better position in qualifying.
But the poor long-run performance of the soft tire made it preferable to risk staying out of Q3 in order not to have that soft tire at the start. Despite this situation, however, in Maranello there was no turning back on the set-up, confirming the lower aerodynamic load, despite the fact that the Italian side is betting everything on race pace and last weekend just the race pace was particularly strong with a high level of downforce. The most plausible hypotheses for this solution are that, on the one hand, by lowering the downforce configuration, you have a better top speed and, therefore, it is easier to carry out attacks and to defend against overtaking. On the other hand, there is the need to study the various configurations during this season to find definitive certainties for the future and two races on the same track, but with different set-ups, represents an excellent opportunity to study data (in addition to the fact that temperatures are expected cooler for the race). Comparing Carlos Sainz’s lap this weekend with Charles Leclerc’s lap from last weekend, we see some interesting data:
The SF21 with lower downforce configuration easily has a better top speed on the straights, but, as expected, it struggles more when cornering, especially in the fast ones like 6, 7 and 9. The considerable advantage in the straight between Turn 7 and Turn 9 and the excellent passage to turn 10 however gives Carlos Sainz a better third sector than last week. However, Ferrari remains one of the few together with Alfa Romeo and Alpine (whose potential has not been expressed due to what happened to Alonso) not to have improved performance compared to the past weekend, given however that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz did not use the soft tyre neither in Q2, nor obviously in Q3.
Apart from Haas’ gains, the team who improves noticeably is clearly McLaren with Lando Norris, the Aston Martin that brings both cars into Q3 but with soft tires, Alpha Tauri and Red Bull, all very aligned. On the other hand, Mercedes remains on similar times to what was seen in the last qualifying session, which seemed to have taken a step forward but evidently failed to make ends meet when necessary. Returning to Ferrari, everything will depend on the race pace in the lower downforce configuration, which, it must be said, still seemed very good in the long runs on Friday, perhaps thanks to a mechanical package modified accordingly to improve tire management, of which obviously we do not have evaluable information.
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