Ferrari-Leclerc Masterpiece
Formula 1 2024 never ceases to amaze and make any type of prediction unreliable. The Monza Grand Prix was an intense race, with a high-tension finale that certainly gave anxiety and pleasure to Ferrari fans and others (McLaren fans aside). The victory of the Maranello team in its home race is without a doubt a great breath of fresh air for the team, even if it perhaps did not come in the way the engineers and drivers of the red team had hoped. Ferrari immediately gave the impression of bet a little more than usual on your home Grand Prixperhaps to try to save a season in front of their fans, knowing that some structural limitations of the SF24 cannot be corrected before next season. In Monza it arrived an all-new lower aerodynamicsaccompanied by some tweaks to the upper aerodynamics and a dedicated set of wings.
If the effort for the wings is widely understandable, the race against time for the bottom and diffuser, which carry among other things more loadon a track where the ideal load is minimal, it might appear almost unjustified, if not by a serious will to have all the possible cards to do well in the home race.
The high expectations were also evident on Leclerc’s face after qualifying, with the Monegasque visibly disappointed with his fourth place, even though he was just a tenth off Lando Norris’ pole position. The impression is that the hopes for the red car were to be able to be superior to McLarenat least on an atypical track like Monzabut the rival team from Woking once again appeared very strong. However, the race, meticulously prepared, served Ferrari some opportunities that the engineers on the pit wall and Leclerc were able to exploit in the best possible way.
The unloaded setup and the new asphalt, first enemies and then great allies of the tyre window
We have said and underlined several times how the two SF24s took to the track with a set-up extremely discharged from an aerodynamic point of view, but on a track whose new asphalt was particularly prone to graining the intuitive conclusion would have been that this choice risked becoming a disadvantage in terms of race pace, with a slipping of the tyre that could potentially trigger the formation of graining well before more charged cars (like McLaren and Mercedes). The vessel However, during the interviews after qualifying he had not expressed any doubts, stating that the low aerodynamic load would have been an advantage right in the race, and the facts have undoubtedly proved him right. The low-load set-up has turned into a winning weapon, with a level of tyre degradation absolutely under control, unlike for example the McLarens with Norris who found himself in crisis with the management of the left front and Piastri who did not feel like trying to stay on the track with just one stop. It is not the first time that we have seen something like this happen with this generation of cars and tyres, just think of the last race in Holland where it was precisely the low-load set-ups that were the most rewarding in the race. The reality is that the key is a set-up that carries and maintains the tyres in the correct usage windowthus being able to exploit it consistently the peak of adhesion of the tyre, and at that point any higher level of aerodynamic load becomes useless and even harmful, since it risks ruining these balances. Not only that: the extremely smooth asphalt of the track expressed a component of adhesive grip important aspect, which becomes a multiplier of the level of grip and which, at that point, contains the sliding without the need for additional load. In this aspect the rubber of the asphalt plays an important role, and it was certainly not easy to guess when the track conditions would allow a stint without collapses. Ferrari’s was a complicated and subtle calculationwhich started from the simulations of engineers in the factory, and which turned out to be masterfully executedwith all the variables centered at the most important moment. The situation was so on edge that the mere 5 extra laps completed by Sainz in the first stint, precisely to have more margin in the one-stop strategy, made the difference between victory and fourth place, off the podium.
The Leclerc component
Of course, to execute such a plan you also need a driver who is able to carry it out and Leclerc’s race was a masterpiece. The Monegasque, with his second victory in Monza, puts a definitive seal on his tire management capabilitiesimproved more and more until reaching the current great level, with an excellent sensitivity both in the management continuous note of the rubber, both in realizing that, once Piastri went to the pits and remained in free airhis tires had started to cleanse yourself from graining and get back to lifegiving the cue for what was then the winning strategy. The graph of Leclerc’s stint is something to frame for its consistency of performance and total absence of tyre collapse, with a standard deviation of times of just 0.250 over a total stint of 38 lapssomething truly extraordinary.
McLarens are faster but also worse on tyres
Looking at McLaren’s house, it must be said that it has also partly broken its own eggs in the basket, with a total absence of team orders that sometimes is hard to understand. Piastri’s overtaking of Norris on the outside at Roggia was splendid, but with negative consequences for the team and with a big risk of the Englishman spinning (a bit like what happened to Sebastian Vettel in 2018). In any case, what was seen on the track was an MCL38 slightly faster of Ferrari, although with, as expected, a much smaller gap than what was seen in Zandvoort, between a tenth and a tenth and a half, but with a Suboptimal tire managementso much so that the one-stop option was proposed to both drivers during the race, receiving a firm refusal in response. Curiously, among other things, it is precisely in the first race where McLaren does not seem to be perfect on the tyres, Oscar Piastri finds a better overall performance for the first time (also on the management front) compared to Lando Norrisas we had never seen him do over the entirety of a Grand Prix until now. The performance of McLaren, still fighting in front and potentially winning without the stroke of genius of Ferrari, underlines once again the incredible technical completeness of the Woking car, now the benchmark to beat on all tracks.
Mercedes one step back, RedBull a disaster
One of the keys to Ferrari’s chances was also the absence of pressure from behindwith Mercedes never being able to attack Ferrari throughout the Grand Prix. Hamilton was missing 1 tenth of a step compared to Sainz and Russell he was the author of a “suicidal” departure, which also prevented him from trying to defend himself with the track position, leaving Leclerc practically free from risks. The good balance shown by the W15 seemed to pay the price of a slightly too high level of downforce and of a low efficiency in these trim conditions. Finally, coming to the incredible fourth force of the racethat is, the Red Bullthe situation is becoming objectively more and more serious. In the Italian weekend at the Milton Keynes team nothing worked: low top speed, significant tyre degradation, Power Unit problems, non-optimal strategy, pit stop errors. Compared to the standards of a few weeks ago, Horner’s team no longer seems the same and Verstappen’s words after the race were clear, in stating that what needs to be done is change the car completely. Of course, seeing how to save something at the level of budget Red Bull engineers this weekend simply “trimmed” the rear wing without developing a dedicated one, the opportunities to make big revolutions, after the many packages brought, do not seem many, and this can only be the case worrying also in terms of 2025as the cars will be evolutions of this year’s. The end of the season, however, remains to be seen, after a beautiful Sunday (one could say finally) for Ferrari fans.
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