What Ferrari will we see at Paul Ricard? | 2021 France GP. What Ferrari will we see at Paul Ricard?.

Formula 1 starts the engines again for the seventh round of the 2021 season. Destination: Le Castellet for the French Grand Prix. Everyone will be focused on the fight at the top between Red Bull and Mercedes but also the Maranello team will be closely watched: will technicians and drivers be able to make another step forward with the SF21 car?

After the last two GPs in Monaco and Baku we have seen a growing Ferrari. Especially on Saturdays. The tight corners at low speed exalted the driving of Charles Leclerc who was able to find the right pace immediately by placing his Ferrari in first place in Q3 on both occasions.

However, the Ferraris of Charles and Carlos failed to capitalize on the Formula 1 qualifying results on race day. The gap between the reigning champion team and that of Milton Keynes is too high to think of a victory without any twists and turns between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton but the Italian side seemed more careful in scoring points against its direct rival for third place rather than trying to fight an impossible battle. The SF21 seems to wear Pirelli tires more than the competition and also the engine that suffers in the early stages of the race with a lot of fuel on board is affecting the Maranello team’s race pace . In addition, the drivers made some mistakes: the failure in Monaco was caused by Charles Leclerc’s accident on Saturday and Carlos Sainz, during the Azerbaijan GP, ​​ended up on an escape route losing several positions.

So what Ferrari will we see in France? Well, the Paul Ricard has fast corners and long straights; we return to a permanent circuit after the two city tracks; we will see the harder compounds with the unknown aspect of seeing how the very high temperatures of the asphalt will impact tyre degradation. The cards will therefore be completely shuffled for all the teams and Ferrari will have to be ready to seize every opportunity to reach the goal of third place against McLaren and use the current season as a testing ground for 2022. We are not still a third of the championship but the road taken by the Italian team seems correct.