The development battle between Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull reaches an exciting moment as we head to the the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, Var for the French Grand Prix weekend, which will be marked by hot temperatures that have been forecast for the three-day event.
Looking back a few weeks ago before the Montreal race in Canada, a Technical Directive was published by the FIA with the goal of limiting porpoising and stopping teams from running a car which could be harmful for drivers )for example if a challenger suffers too much from bounces or the porpoising is too severely, the ride height must be raised or a team risk being disqualified.
The initial plan was to introduce these measures starting with the French Grand Prix, but eventually they will come into force after the summer break in the Belgian Grand Prix, in order to give teams the possibility of preparing for the changes. With this in mind, teams will definitely already start analyzing the best options and possible adjustments for this new formula at the Circuit Paul Ricard, while those which have not faced so many problems with porpoising will also want to make upgrades that are – as always in Formula 1, pushed to the limit.
This means that all the development plans for the next upgrades have to carefully take into consideration the changes needed for the new Technical Directive.
Red Bull and Scuderia Ferrari have both planned a few upgrades for the next round of the 2022 Formula 1 season at the Circuit Paul Ricard, and the hot weather expected for this race will make this a key aspect to keep on eye out for, as explained by F1 expert Paolo Filisetti for RacingNews365:
“If the air has a low density, then the flow can be interrupted more easily and thus trigger porpoising. What will be interesting is how the teams will adhere to the FIA formula for the Belgian GP. Every upgrade brought can have a reduced effect. Suppose an upgrade on paper is supposed to yield a tenth and they suddenly have to adhere to the FIA metrics, then the effectiveness of the upgrade could be lower – for example, by half a tenth time gain or even nothing at all.” – he pointed out.
The scorching heat predicted for this weekend in France will represented an extra challenge for all teams, but things are certainly more complicated for Ferrari and its customer teams, given the power unit reliability issues encountered during this first half of the championship. This will be a reason of concern for the Maranello team, especially if we look back at Carlos Sainz’s engine problem last time out at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.
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But Ferrari is not the only one worried for the conditions expected in Le Castellet, as other teams with engines supplied by Mercedes, Red Bull Powertrains or Renault will certainly need to take special action to protect their power units from the impact of the extremely hot weather.
Not to mention the fact that the new asphalt which was laid last year at the Circuit Paul Ricard is very dark. As a result, tyres will also be affected by higher temperatures, which could lead to extra tyre degradation. Scuderia Ferrari suffered a lot in terms of tyre wear last year in the French Grand Prix, while Red Bull had no chance of challenging the Maranello team two weeks ago in Austria due to high tyre degradation in Austria, but most likely this was caused by a bad set-up chosen by the Austrian team in their home race.
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