Free tests all to be deciphered
We had mentioned that the new sprint format opened up the possibility of very different approaches for each team, and the first free practice session confirmed this all too clearly. The only free practice session available to the teams and drivers of the Chinese Grand Prix was in fact faced by each team with a completely different work programme, so much so as to make it almost impossible to compare performances across teams, but we can only make a few evaluation of the different approaches seen on the track.
Ferrari uses only one set of softs and focuses on pure performance
The Maranello team chose the soft tyre, using just one set of it for the entire session with both drivers. Work focused on perfecting the set-up throughout the first phase of the session by working on the flying lap, with a series of fast laps alternating with cool-down laps. Only in the last phase did both Leclerc and Sainz try to make one short long run simulation of 3 laps each, with attack times that appeared to be decent, but also with a rapid decline in performance, which could however easily be explained by the extremely worn soft tyres. An approach from the Maranello team, therefore, which seems to want to use the Sprint as an on-track check of the long run setups, taking advantage of the novelty of the park being open in view of the race, and which has undoubtedly favored holding the greatest number of sets of new tires of all compounds available for the rest of the weekend.
RedBull upside down compared to Ferrari
The two leading teams at this start of the world championship could not have conceived two programs more diametrically opposed than what they saw on the track. In fact, Red Bull began the session on the medium tire with a long long run simulation, giving the impression of wanting to carry out a series of checks on the risk of graining on the front, which is very high in Shanghai with the cool temperatures these days. However, if one could have imagined that the program would end there, at the end of the session both Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen instead mounted soft tires to proceed with work on the flying lap, with a series of fast laps alternating with the usual cooling laps. Therefore, a decidedly more complete program at RedBullwith the Milton Keynes team having tested two compounds and both a single lap and a long run in fairly realistic conditions, but which will have to give up a set of new soft tyres.
Mercedes uses the hard but with great difficulty, McLaren seems well balanced
An even different work programme, then, at Mercedes, with Hamilton and Russell busy with a single set of hard tyre, but with many laps on the track, alternating pace tests with flying lap simulations. However, the Brackley team's start to the weekend did not appear promising, with a major set-up change decided immediately on George Russell's car and a frustrated radio team from Hamilton who spoke of an absolutely not good car to his race engineer Bono. On the contrary, McLaren appeared in good shape, with responses that were evidently consistent between the simulations and the track, so much so that Norris did not even complete the one lap that could have earned him the best time, once it was verified that the car's response on the soft tire it was what was expected.
Little differentiation of programs, performances yet to be discovered
A final note is that almost no team has differentiated the work programs between the two drivers, probably complying with a request from the drivers themselves who wanted to have all the information (and all the tyres) possible “on equal terms” with their teammate. In any case, drawing any conclusions on the performances from this first session seems out of place. It is clear that between Ferrari and RedBull the former preferred an aggressive approach on the data available, with good confidence in the simulations, but conservative on the tires available, exactly the opposite of the other. For this reason we do not use telemetry or other data in our analysis this time, as they are decidedly not representative without either knowing, or in this case being able to guess, all the conditions in which the various cars ran on the track. The qualification of the Sprint will therefore give us the first real feedback on its performance.
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