FORMU1A.UNO |Ā Ferrari turned up the engine power in Australia while in Imola
byĀ Giuliano Duchessa & Piergiuseppe Donadoni
Charles Leclerc celebrated his second win of the season in Melbourne today. Max Verstappen retired due to an engine failure. Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel also retired.
After his second position in Saudi Arabia, Charles Leclerc drove a flawless race at Albert Park, starting from pole position. After holding his position at the start, his F1-75 immediately pulled away from the rest of the pack, crossing the finish line an impressive 20.5 seconds ahead of Checo Perez.
Entering the weekend, Ferrari expected Red Bull favorite
Leclerc showed how to take the F1-75 to a different level. Although in qualifying the fight with the Red Bulls was very close (read more), at least until the penultimate attempt, in the race the Ferrari was absolutely uncatchable. The umpteenth family breakdown between the Milton Keynes and Faenza teams, rather worrying in terms of reliability, hid the real gap that would have been over 25 seconds, without the safety car and the retirement.
Charles Leclerc and the Maranello car, in projection, would have given an average gap of 6 tenths and a half per lap to Max and his RB18. Hardly predictable on the eve of the race, at least in these terms. A perfect pairing. "We were all surprised by our pace," admitted the Monegasque at the end of the race, who expected at least "on paper" going into the weekend to be behind Red Bull. "So it was a nice surprise," he then concluded.
But at Maranello they developed the car well in view of the race. What was missing in Arabia. The weekend started rather well, thanks to good work done at the simulator in Maranello. Ferrari started with a set-up that would mainly protect the rear tyres, then the FP2 long runs showed a possible graining on the front tyres, more accentuated on the Medium ones.
Ferrari: for Australia, a deliberate increase in engine performance estimated at 5 bhp
For this reason, two fundamental things were decided between Friday and Saturday. The first was to increase the front load in order to limit the onset of graining. The most loaded front wing of the two brought to Australia was chosen, the one with the last upper flap straight and not slightly cut. The Albert Park track was not only revised in terms of its layout but also in terms of its surface; Pirelli itself, through the mouth of boss Mario Isola, had warned since Friday that the sliding, despite the increase in grip, could have continued during the race, given the lack of high-pressure treatment of the asphalt to eliminate excess bitumen. In fact, the bituminous alloy continues to re-emerge in the newly laid asphalts, taking away grip from the cars, the 2022s, which intrinsically already suffer from understeer that needs to be adequately compensated for. Ferrari has played the card of increased downforce, despite the fact that on Friday it was already set up with a less efficient aerodynamic configuration than Red Bull.
The second is a technical consequence of the first choice, made possible by the results - so far positive - in terms of Power Unit reliability in the first two events. A small power increase of 5 HP has been deliberated in order to counter the better efficiency of Red Bull in Australia, which thus manages to generate more speed in the straights. It is not a foregone conclusion that this small gain will also be used at Imola, as Ferrari is also working hard on reliability with the first unit. "We are more interested in finishing the data collection program on reliability, at least until race 5 [Miami]" they had in fact let us know, before introducing a more aggressive and especially durable use of the Italian engine.
The small increase in performance, assessable around a little more than a tenth of a second, allowed to fight for Pole position with a better chance, as well as to generate more important speeds to defend themselves, in case, from Verstappen in the race. Moreover, indirectly it could have helped Carlos Sainz in his comeback, through a strategy that would have certainly paid off without the Spaniard's mistake.
The engineers agreed with the drivers to produce more porpoising.
As an engineer confirmed, the bouncing, as well as creating physical discomfort, creates an imbalance that can tend to generate greater degradation of the rear tires, reducing the stint. In this sense, Ferrari's decision to leave itself two sets of medium tires is clear, unlike Red Bull. If the degradation had been higher, Leclerc would have done two qualifying runs, however this was not the case.
"I don't know why, but I'm not very sensitive to porpoising," Leclerc said after his win. "If you look at it from the outside, it looks bad. However, in the car it doesn't bother me too much in terms of performance. Only on the entry to Turn 9," he continued, also stating that he couldn't have gone any faster without the bounce. "Of course, it's definitely something we want to eliminate, to avoid bouncing in the corners which can be a problem" concluded the Monegasque.
The F1-75 also went beyond expectations when it came to compound usage. "We were stronger than we expected," said Leclerc in the post race, who then continued, "We were extremely strong on the medium especially towards the end of the stint." The pace was "very strong" and there was very little graining. A phenomenon that had repeatedly slowed down the Ferrari of last season, unable to generate the right grip on the front.
It is quite evident that the aerodynamics of the F1-75 protects and never heats up the tires too much, especially the rear ones, in short, it has a wider window of use when it brings them to the right temperature. On the other hand, there is more difficulty in getting temperature into the tyres compared to the RB18, something we have seen with the double lap preparation in qualifying and restarts after the safety car.
Speaking in general, the tires offered a fascinating consistency. One stop, two or three has no importance in the economy of the race when there are competitive cars between them, indeed the mandatory stop could be eliminated if the prescriptions allowed it. Albon, in a Williams more than acceptable even after 57 laps on Hard, would have deserved P7.
