After a long wait, the fourth round of the 2021 Formula 1 season offered the most representative race so far regarding the values on the grid, on a complete and convincing track and with a Grand Prix without any anomalies related to the weather or the asphalt conditions. However, the verdict of the Catalan race was not different from that of the previous rounds, with the exception of an important reaction of Ferrari in the perspective of third place behind Mercedes and Red Bull.
Ferrari stands out on a growing center-group
For the first time this season, Scuderia Ferrari has scored more points than McLaren, placing itself as the third force in Spain and relaunching its (slim) chances for the podium. The SF21 in particular performed better than in the past on race pace and tire management. The good work of Maranello team on this aspect was aided by the slight drop in temperatures on Sunday and presence of the Safety Car, factors that helped to reduce tyre overheating. The summary is confirmed by the radio communication addressed to Carlos Sainz in the first stint: “The tires are better than expected.”
As with Mercedes, the convincing performance of the SF21 is attributable to the progressive improvement in the understanding of the car by the Maranello team, which leads to increasingly effective decisions in terms of set-up. Behind the scenes, the development of the SF21 is therefore proceeding relentlessly, although the fewer updates introduced since the beginning of the season compared to the competition could be misleading: “We are optimizing the package we have, we have not made any revolutions. Since the beginning of the season it is always the same, except for small innovative details. Our job is to optimize the machine.” – Charles Leclerc summed up perfectly.
SF21 between bonnet and mapping
The amount of updates brought by rivals and the few innovations introduced by Ferrari testify to how much the development of the 2021 single-seaters cannot be quantified solely through the number of new components installed on board. As revealed by the words of Charles Leclerc, the Scuderia is currently focused on extracting the maximum potential from the SF21, a job in which the choice of the bonnet to be used in the race continues to be involved.
Once again in Barcelona during free practice Ferrari tested the hood with the narrower rear vent for hot air, used in the race so far only in Imola on the coolest weekend of the season, and then opted for the wider specification for qualifying and race. This choice is indicative of some concerns in Maranello about the temperatures of the power unit, which in Spain led to a tendency towards the wider bonnet which affects the aerodynamics of the rear end more.
With the introduction of the single engine mapping for qualifying and racing, the choice of bonnet has become even more interlinked with that of the mapping itself.. The adoption of a larger vent for hot air in fact avoids having to be more conservative in the exploitation of the power unit, thus compensating for the loss in terms of aerodynamics with the greater cavalry of a more thrust mapping.
However, Ferrari’s “victory” over McLaren is not a source of safety for the Maranello team’s fans. In qualifying Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were not exempt from the risk of starting further back, with Ocon suffering from engine combustion anomalies in the final session, while Norris and Ricciardo were unable to make a second attempt in Q3 respectively due to the absence of a set of new tires and for lack of time.
In retrospect, it is impossible to say whether McLaren and Alpine could actually challenge Ferrari more in qualifying, but if they had succeeded, it would have been difficult for Ferrari to achieve the best pace expressed in the race and recover. Similar considerations in the field of hypotheses do not allow any conclusions to be drawn, but remember that with such a compact center-group even one single detail can be decisive at the end of the Grand Prix, heralding a race for third place to be fought step by step.
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