2023 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[dialtone]

Maybe (I said I wouldn't argue ), but also worth noting that Verstappen lost his front wing endplate (Like Leclerc in Mexico this year, and Silverstone last year). That did not help his car.

Without the SC for the collision, Verstappen would have had a perfect front wing, a 3 second gap, and only 5 lap tire difference. I simply think Verstappen would have caught and passed Leclerc from there.

5 lap difference is huge here not small. It’s 10% of race distance and Max had to pit after 17 laps on mediums so 5 laps are 20-30% of tire life.

Max needed 3 laps to get out of LEC DRS with the tire advantage.

And to top it all off Max had tires that were 5 laps older and lived through a lot of traffic and certainly wouldn’t have been healthy after 30 laps on them towards the end of the race.

None of this matters. Look at Mexico. You saw the same thing. Leclerc nice long stint on mediums whereas Verstappen killed his tires much earlier. Then we switched to the hard tire and Verstappen was dominant.

So basically the medium stints were irrelevant. What matters is what tires suited each car.

Why would I look at Mexico as a comparison to a race where temperatures were 20C lower? Best I can do is look at pace difference on mediums and hards and stint length of mediums. And it’s not really clear Max was going to catch up without difficulties.

[Xyz22]

Charles was very adamant that the advantage RB had was very big with the new tyres and i tend to trust him.
Would have been great to see.

[AR3-GP]

See I knew I’d end up arguing, lol.

Ferrari didn’t pit for new tires, which shows they didn’t have the confidence in a straight fight on the hards. If they knew they would struggle with warmup, why wouldn’t you pit?

Leclerc said they wanted track position. If you are faster, you don’t care about track position.

[avantman]

Maybe (I said I wouldn't argue ), but also worth noting that Verstappen lost his front wing endplate (Like Leclerc in Mexico this year, and Silverstone last year). That did not help his car.

Without the SC for the collision, Verstappen would have had a perfect front wing, a 3 second gap, and only 5 lap tire difference. I simply think Verstappen would have caught and passed Leclerc from there.

5 lap difference is huge here not small. It’s 10% of race distance and Max had to pit after 17 laps on mediums so 5 laps are 20-30% of tire life.

Max needed 3 laps to get out of LEC DRS with the tire advantage.

And to top it all off Max had tires that were 5 laps older and lived through a lot of traffic and certainly wouldn’t have been healthy after 30 laps on them towards the end of the race.

None of this matters. Look at Mexico. You saw the same thing. Leclerc nice long stint on mediums at a good pace whereas Verstappen had to get off the mediums much earlier. Then both cars switched to the hard tire and Verstappen was much quicker than the Ferrari.

So basically, the medium stints were irrelevant as it's not the tire they finished the race on. We've seen Verstappen have metronomic stints on tires at incredible pace. 5 laps was nothing. Teams and drivers said the deg was low here. Verstappen had graining in the first stint beacuse he pushed too much to clear Leclerc's DRS range (remember he was practically 1.8 seconds in front after the first lap).

True, it also reminded me Jeddah 2022 very much. Leclerc had A LOT lesser deg on the first stint on medium, he was also a lot faster than Max (who didn't even had any graining that day, just lack of overall grip), but when they switched to hards, they had basically the same pace until the very end. Max couldn't really even come close enough to get DRS, but that changed quickly after the SC. Leclerc wasn't as fast shortly after restart, due to tire warming issues, lack of confidence driving in low grip conditions on cooled down tires or whatever(looked very similar to today after the restart) and Max got DRS and ultimately made an overtake. Charles still easily stayed with him, even lapping slightly faster at the end, but didn't have enough overspeed to overtake.
People make too much of one particular stint, and today it was clear Max issue wasn't normal deg, his fronts opened up causing rapid drop of grip. Leclerc had the same issues in 2022 in Imola and Miami with softer tires, didn't have any issues on hard. Today it was simply other way around with graining.
There wasn't almost any deg on hard today indeed. ANd more importantly they weren't prone to graining. Ricciardo who stopped once for hards on lap 17, put his personal best, very respectable lap time at the final lap of the race(lap 50). Charles put his personal best as well, even if he used the DRS and some extra energy on that lap. Deg wasn't an issue on hard.

[dialtone]

See I knew I’d end up arguing, lol.

Ferrari didn’t pit for new tires, which shows they didn’t have the confidence in a straight fight on the hards. If they knew they would struggle with warmup, why wouldn’t you pit?

Leclerc said they wanted track position. If you are faster, you don’t care about track position.

No they didn’t pit because they thought would benefit from track position and didn’t know what the rest was going to do. It was a bad call but charles was very confident of the car the whole weekend.

Had no issues with hard warmup on new hards, let alone on used which was the problem in jeddah ‘22.

Anyway, doesn’t matter. Let’s all agree Max was going to lap the field in 1 lap if the safety car didn’t come out. And then after lapping everyone he was going to complete the final lap walking and still gain on charles. That’s how good max is.

[nico5]

See I knew I’d end up arguing, lol.

Ferrari didn’t pit for new tires, which shows they didn’t have the confidence in a straight fight on the hards. If they knew they would struggle with warmup, why wouldn’t you pit?

Leclerc said they wanted track position. If you are faster, you don’t care about track position.

Poor strategy? Underestimating the difference in tire performance? They would have been ahead of Max even pitting, so what would they have had to lose? Even with Perez, you always want to be behind on equal tires rather than ahead on old tires on such a track and with such temperatures

[AR3-GP]

See I knew I’d end up arguing, lol.

Ferrari didn’t pit for new tires, which shows they didn’t have the confidence in a straight fight on the hards. If they knew they would struggle with warmup, why wouldn’t you pit?

Leclerc said they wanted track position. If you are faster, you don’t care about track position.

No they didn’t pit because they thought would benefit from track position and didn’t know what the rest was going to do. It was a bad call but charles was very confident of the car the whole weekend.

Had no issues with hard warmup on new hards, let alone on used which was the problem in jeddah ‘22.

Anyway, doesn’t matter. Let’s all agree Max was going to lap the field in 1 lap if the safety car didn’t come out. And then after lapping everyone he was going to complete the final lap walking and still gain on charles. That’s how good max is.

I did not say that and I don't agree with that. Ferrari was closer than they've ever been (Singapore aside) but I'm not sure it would have been enough if there was no SC.

We also saw Leclerc make a mistake and miss a corner on lap 43 under pressure from Perez. That finish would have been anything from straightforward. We don't know how Leclerc would have held. As I said before, see lap 43.

We actually saw similar things in Miami and Jeddah last year. Leclerc missed a corner in Miami under pressure from Verstappen, and then missed T1 in Jeddah near the end.

[Espresso]

Well done by LeClerc and Sainz. Now let them continue the next race and claim 2nd in the constructors.
After the ´true sportivity check´ of the teams (Sainz 10 grid penalty) a showdown on the track to grab 2nd is what I think Ferrari deserves!

[LM10]

Max was only slightly faster than Charles on the Hards even though he had 5 laps less on them.

Considering without the SC:
- It would have been the other way around regarding tyre age
- Max needed to clear cars in front of him over several laps and there still was some gap between him and Charles to close
- Charles after having warmed up the fresh Hards pretty easily overtook Stroll to then have a bunch of free air to Perez to close on his pace without any pressure…

… I don’t know how some people can be sure of Max still having caught Charles.

[Paa]

Maybe (I said I wouldn't argue ), but also worth noting that Verstappen lost his front wing endplate (Like Leclerc in Mexico this year, and Silverstone last year). That did not help his car.

Without the SC for the collision, Verstappen would have had a perfect front wing, a 3 second gap, and only 5 lap tire difference. I simply think Verstappen would have caught and passed Leclerc from there.

5 lap difference is huge here not small. It’s 10% of race distance and Max had to pit after 17 laps on mediums so 5 laps are 20-30% of tire life.

Max needed 3 laps to get out of LEC DRS with the tire advantage.

And to top it all off Max had tires that were 5 laps older and lived through a lot of traffic and certainly wouldn’t have been healthy after 30 laps on them towards the end of the race.

I don't know what would have happened, just jumping in saying that Max had to pit early in the first stint, due to graining, not wear. It is possible that he had 5 - 10 - 15 more laps in his mediums, we don't know how many. It is just impossible to guess his hard stint tyre life based on the first stint length. As he got no graining on the hard compound.

[AR3-GP]

Max was only slightly faster than Charles on the Hards even though he had 5 laps less on them.

Considering without the SC:
- It would have been the other way around regarding tyre age
- Max needed to clear cars in front of him over several laps and there still was some gap between him and Charles to close
- Charles after having warmed up the fresh Hards pretty easily overtook Stroll to then have a bunch of free air to Perez to close on his pace without any pressure…

… I don’t know how some people can be sure of Max still having caught Charles.

On lap 25 after Verstappen passed Russell (and before the SC) these were the intervals:

Perez
Stroll +11.203
Lec +0.370
Ver +3.6

So this is simply not correct:

Max needed to clear cars in front of him over several laps and there still was some gap between him and Charles to close

There was no serious competitor between verstappen and Leclerc already from lap 25 which was before the SC and if anything Stroll would have just given Verstappen a free DRS lap. Verstappen would have been in Leclerc's slip stream all the way as well.

[dialtone]

Max was only slightly faster than Charles on the Hards even though he had 5 laps less on them.

Considering without the SC:
- It would have been the other way around regarding tyre age
- Max needed to clear cars in front of him over several laps and there still was some gap between him and Charles to close
- Charles after having warmed up the fresh Hards pretty easily overtook Stroll to then have a bunch of free air to Perez to close on his pace without any pressure…

… I don’t know how some people can be sure of Max still having caught Charles.

On lap 25 after Verstappen passed Russell (and before the SC) these were the intervals:

Perez
Stroll +11.203
Lec +0.370
Ver +3.6

So this is simply not correct:

Max needed to clear cars in front of him over several laps and there still was some gap between him and Charles to close

There was no serious competitor between verstappen and Leclerc already from lap 25 which was before the SC and if anything Stroll would have just given Verstappen a free DRS lap. Verstappen would have been in Leclerc's slip stream all the way as well.

Convenient to use that lap for the gap to max lmao. That gap was over 4s right after LEC cleared Stroll.

[AR3-GP]

Convenient to use that lap for the gap to max lmao. That gap was over 4s right after LEC cleared Stroll.

The gap went up because Leclerc used DRS and a tow on the vegas strip to pass Stroll. Verstappen would have a corresponding lap with DRS when it was his turn to pass Stroll which would have reset that advantage that Leclerc got from it. If Russell didn't do his nonsense in T12, then the gap would have been even smaller.

[dialtone]

Maybe (I said I wouldn't argue ), but also worth noting that Verstappen lost his front wing endplate (Like Leclerc in Mexico this year, and Silverstone last year). That did not help his car.

Without the SC for the collision, Verstappen would have had a perfect front wing, a 3 second gap, and only 5 lap tire difference. I simply think Verstappen would have caught and passed Leclerc from there.

5 lap difference is huge here not small. It’s 10% of race distance and Max had to pit after 17 laps on mediums so 5 laps are 20-30% of tire life.

Max needed 3 laps to get out of LEC DRS with the tire advantage.

And to top it all off Max had tires that were 5 laps older and lived through a lot of traffic and certainly wouldn’t have been healthy after 30 laps on them towards the end of the race.

I don't know what would have happened, just jumping in saying that Max had to pit early in the first stint, due to graining, not wear. It is possible that he had 5 - 10 - 15 more laps in his mediums, we don't know how many. It is just impossible to guess his hard stint tyre life based on the first stint length. As he got no graining on the hard compound.

Yeah but that’s neither here nor there. Max ruined his tires by pushing to get past the 2s gap from Charles while in clean air, he didn’t ruin them because he was in traffic or whatnot. Normally in race he just takes off but here the balance of the car wasn’t as good as Ferrari. So it’s entirely reasonable to think that with older tires, even if hards, he might have struggled more than charles on newer.

[dialtone]

Convenient to use that lap for the gap to max lmao. That gap was over 4s right after LEC cleared Stroll.

The gap went up because Leclerc used DRS on the vegas strip to pass Stroll. Verstappen would have a corresponding lap with DRS when it was his turn to pass Stroll which would have reset that advantage that Leclerc got from it.

Of course, but somehow the gap didn’t go down because Stroll was slow earlier, it went down because Max is an ultrachampion. If he gains it’s all him against all odds in the best ever f1 car, if he loses it’s someone else’s unfair advantage.