The Ferrari SF-23 loses again. The Las Vegas Grand Prix surprised everyone after the spectacle offered in the night race. The skepticism and various criticisms directed at F1 at the beginning of the weekend, after the unfortunate manhole incident, seem to have slightly subsided, making room for positive comments on the race. Max Verstappen’s 18th seasonal victory, which has now equaled Sebastian Vettel at 53 wins, was perhaps one of the most hard-fought of the season.
This is all due to the great competitiveness of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, combined with the various investigations to which the Dutchman was subjected, three in total. The Monegasque comes out defeated after Saturday’s pole, but still finishes second after a majestic move on Sergio Perez on the last lap. Although Checo finishes the race in third position, the 15 points ensure him mathematically the second place in the drivers’ championship.
Today’s write-up “demands” to review, on a technical level, the twenty-first championship appointment of the 2023 racing campaign. We will focus on the top three finishers, trying to understand how the various strategies, setup choices, and skills of the drivers determined the final result of the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ferrari SF-23: Performance and Strategy of Car #16 in Las Vegas
At the start, Charles loses the race lead to Max. The Hasselt talent in turn 1 forces Leclerc completely off the track. Furious, the Monegasque opens the radio claiming the return of the first position, or at least a penalty for the Dutchman. After an investigation lasting six laps, the verdict arrives, and a 5-second penalty is imposed on the Red Bull driver.
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez, starting 11th, finds himself trapped in the chaos of the backmarkers, also picking up some damage to the front wing. Given the numerous debris on the track, a Virtual Safety Car is deployed. The race struggles to take off in terms of pace, as Lando Norris’s crash causes the deployment of the Safety Car. The Red Bull Mexican takes advantage to change the wing and tires, mounting new Hard tires. Only on lap 7 can we seriously start looking at the stopwatch.
Initially, Max Verstappen opens a slight gap on Charles Leclerc, reaching its peak at around 2.4 seconds. From there onwards, the RB19 begins to show graining on the front tires, slowing the pace and allowing Charles to close in, so much so that on lap 17, the Ferrari driver puts his wheels back in front of car #33, which is then called into the pits by Lambiase.
Charles Leclerc, in agreement with his pit wall, extends the stint for another five laps, given the good management of the Medium tires that his Ferrari SF-23 allows. Therefore, at the end of this first part of the race, we can already evaluate the performance of the two examined drivers:
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LECLERC’S MEDIUM PACE – 1st STINT (M): 1:39.170
VERSTAPPEN’S MEDIUM PACE – 1st STINT (M): 1:39.422 (+0.252 s/lap)
The two and a half tenths discrepancy per lap was mainly determined by the graining in the last 4 laps of Max’s first stint. In that time frame, his lap times surged by almost 0.7s. Given the 5 additional seconds for the penalty imposed by the race director for the move on Charles Leclerc at the start, Max Verstappen exits the pits in eleventh place behind Russell. Meanwhile, Sergio Perez finds himself in the lead, having made the pit stop before everyone else.
However, his leadership is only virtual, as he inevitably has to make another pit stop. Therefore, only a Safety Car could put him back in sequence with the other front-runners. Fortunately for him, the envisaged scenario occurs on lap 26 following the contact between George Russell and Max Verstappen (investigated but not punished) to clear the track of debris. A chance that comes at the right time for Perez and at the worst time for Charles.
The Mexican stops to fit new Hard tires, while Charles Leclerc, who had stopped just five laps before, stays on the track but returns to first place. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen also seizes the opportunity, enters the pit lane, coming out with a brand new set of white-banded Pirellis without changing the damaged front wing. Up to that point, the true performance of the amazing RB19 had not been seen.
However, as soon as the race resumed, Red Bull’s superiority over Ferrari was quickly evident, on equal compounds, both in warm-up, always a critical and chronic issue for the SF-23, and in terms of pure performance. Overtaking becomes a matter of time. Max takes the lead on lap 37, and Perez rises to second place six laps later, taking advantage of Charles’s mistake in S3.
However, Charles Leclerc does not give up at all, and on the last lap of the race, with a limit and surgical braking, he surprises the “asleep” Checo, who, not anticipating the move by the Ferrari driver, is outsmarted in the final laps of the race. As a result, car #16 crosses the finish line in second place just 0.177s ahead of the RB19 from the former Racing Point. Observing the data from the last stint on the Hard tires, it is evident that Red Bull had an advantage, albeit not very pronounced, over the red car:
LECLERC’S MEDIUM PACE – STINT 2 (H): 1:36.870 (+0.263 s/lap)
VERSTAPPEN’S MEDIUM PACE – STINT 3 (H): 1:36.607
PEREZ’S MEDIUM PACE – STINT 3 (H): 1:36.836 (+0.229 s/lap)
Las Vegas GP 2023: Ferrari SF-23 loses again due to various aspects
What can be attributed to this slight superiority of Red Bull? The answer is sought first of all in the intrinsic characteristics of the cars. We now know very well that the RB19, equipped with excellent downforce and balance, has no problems “warming up” the various tire compounds, while Ferrari suffers from tire warm-up issues, exacerbated with full tanks and harder compounds. If we add low air and track temperatures, these difficulties are accentuated.
Moreover, the unfavorable timing of the Safety Car caused a sudden drop in temperatures, which, all the more, made it even more difficult to put energy into the tires, bringing them back into the correct operating window. For the rest, a response more related to the setup can be the following: after FP3, the Prancing Horse decided on a specific rear wing with load levels similar to Monza. The goal was to maximize the End of Straight Speed (EOSS) at the expense of cornering speeds.
The yellow tire, more flexible by nature and less prone to understeer, gave excellent responses on the SF-23, essentially “covering up” the missing load given by the lighter wing. Charles kept Max’s pace quite well, and as Red Bull has indicated, signs of graining appeared before the red car. This factor emphasizes that with the Pirelli C4 (medium), the Italian car was perfectly balanced. However, as soon as they switched to the C3 (hard) tire, the lower grip and lower load resulted in a slower pace.
In all of this, it is legitimate to ask if victory was within Ferrari’s reach in Las Vegas: the conditional is a must, but given the lap times and tire degradation, second place was probably the maximum Leclerc could achieve. The chances of success slightly increased after the penalty imposed on Max, which slowed down the inevitable charge towards victory.
As mentioned, Bernd Mayländer’s presence in the middle of the race undoubtedly dashed Charles Leclerc’s hopes, who found himself alone against the two-pronged attack of Red Bull. From this perspective, if the FIA had discounted the penalty for replacing the control unit on Carlos Sainz’s #55 car, Ferrari’s double opposition to the Milton Keynes team would have determined a completely different scenario. Too bad…
Source: Andrea Mauri and Alessandro Arcari for FUnoanalisitecnica
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