The cancellation of the Chinese Grand Prix means that the stage in Australia is the last one before a month’s stop waiting for the trip to Baku. A long period of inactivity in which the teams will be able to brood over the data collected and the production departments will work hard to complete the development packages. With this in mind, the Melbourne race will be extremely important for carrying out the final tests which will be the reference point for the analyzes to be carried out in the factory over the next few weeks.
The Melbourne track
If two years ago someone had compared the Melbourne track to Silverstone rather than the Hungaroring, they would have been thought crazy. The changes made in 2021 have completely altered the nature of the track, which now presents itself as a high-speed circuit with its 5278 meters connected by 14 bends. In the new configuration, in 2022 Leclerc conquered the pole position at an average of 244 km/h and if, as it seems, in 2023 the times drop by about a second, the average could go up to 247 km/h. Values much closer to the 252 km/h of Perez’s last pole in Jeddah rather than the 217 km/h of Verstappen’s lap in Bahrain. The time spent under braking is among the lowest on the calendar, estimated by Brembo at around 12% of the lap against 13% in Saudi Arabia, and further reinforces the evidence of how Melbourne is a track more like Jeddah than it is Bahrain. The main difference between the two circuits lies in the mix of corners, which while in Saudi Arabia were mainly long-distance and long-distance with speeds exceeding 150 km/h, are more varied in Australia. You go from lean-to corners like 12 and 14 to rapid changes of direction, including the spectacular 9-10 chicane, one of the best places in the world to watch a Formula 1 car at work. Then there are the low-speed hairpin bends, at the exit from which rear stability, ease of return on the gas and traction are required. Standing out among these is turn 3, identified by Brembo as the most demanding braking section on the track, where you go from 300 to 100 km/h in just 2.3 seconds, with a peak deceleration of 4.6 g.
A pro-Red Bull circuit
The current Red Bull is a single-seater whose weaknesses are hard to find, potentially capable of winning on any type of circuit. As well as Jeddah, the new Melbourne is a highly efficient runway, where more than elsewhere the ability to release a fair level of load at minimum resistance is rewarded. A quality in which the RB19 is queen and which on paper will help open up an advantage over its pursuers similar to that seen in Saudi Arabia. In addition to the risk of an internal fight between Verstappen and Perez, the main concern for Red Bull is paradoxically that of going too fast. Although superiority arises from sporting and engineering merits, killing the competition would risk exacerbating the current discontent in the paddock and could lead the FIA and Formula 1 to take countermeasures. As always, however, these must be disguised as security reasons in order to be approved.
Another topic of discussion on the upper floors of the Circus is that of overtaking. In the past Melbourne has been a track short of manoeuvres, but in its new configuration it has already proven that overtaking in Australia is now easier. Unfortunately, the first two races of the year highlighted greater difficulty in chasing the cars, underlined both by the words of the pilots and by the telemetry data. The 2023 Formula 1 cars lose more performance than in 2022 when traveling in slipstream, a change not exclusively dependent on changes to the technical regulations. The natural development has emphasized the research of the outwash effect from the front wing and increased the swirls on the sides of the bottom. Not only does this tend to widen the wake, but it also increases aerodynamic sensitivity to the quality of the airflow hitting the car. A situation which, should it continue to worsen, could give the organizers new pretexts to intervene with a directive or a change to the technical regulation.
Work at the Ferrari house
The forecasts for the weekend do not exclude the risk of rain, but above all they envisage low temperatures, with the maximum temperatures not exceeding 20°C. The cold on paper is welcomed by Mercedes, whose rear instability is emphasized by high temperatures. On the other hand, the situation at Ferrari is more complex. Sainz commented that one of the problems with the SF-23 is tire overheating, exacerbated by the loss of load when traveling in the slipstream. A dynamic that leads us to think that overheating derives from sliding on the ground which generates surface heat on the rubber, different from the “good heat” which heats the tire from the inside. The clues in Saudi Arabia lead us to think of a Ferrari struggling to transfer vertical energy to the tires to bring them up to temperature correctly, which is why the low temperatures expected in Melbourne will contain overheating from sliding, but will not help the tire “ignite” . The goal for Ferrari in Australia, even more than returning before the pursuers, is to continue testing to understand the root of SF-23’s ills and steer development accordingly during the impending hiatus. Observing the work that will be done during free practice will be of great interest in order to have new clues about the current shortcomings of the Cavallino. A new test with the updated fund already tested in Jeddah is not excluded, while new updates could arrive, albeit small. In fact, Australia is historically a stage in which few new cars are seen, thanks to the logistical difficulty due to the distance from the headquarters in Europe.
Pirelli: the pressures are decreasing
The expected competition in Australia is for the role of second force. Ferrari and Mercedes try to put pressure on one Aston Martin which has already proven to be competitive on different tracks. The smoother nature of the Melbourne circuit, speeded up by around 7km/h compared to the 2019 edition, increases the chances of overtaking and invites you to pay more attention to the race than to qualifying in the set-up phase. The Australian one is a low-abrasion asphalt, a compound containing metal aggregates which in optimal conditions guarantees a discreet level of grip. Being a street circuit historically the tires and the evolution of the track are important factors in Melbourne and in 2023 they will be emphasized by the debut of Formula 2 and Formula 3. In the 2022 edition the winning strategy was a one-stop, which however does not appear more so obvious. In fact, the harder compound, the C5, will no longer be available, replaced by the C4, while Pirelli has confirmed the C2 and C3 as the softer options. Even more important, however, is to see how the minimum static inflation pressures drop again compared to 2022, after which in Jeddah they had instead been identical to the front and 1 psi higher at the rear. The Saudi one was a track with high lateral stresses, but there was still the fear that the new Pirellis could no longer be used at lower pressures than 2022 as promised. Alarm returned in view of Melbourne, where the prescriptions for front and rear are 23 and 21 psi respectively, against 24.5 and 21.5 psi in 2022. However, the EOS camber angle at the end of the straight changes slightly, which descends from -3.50 to -3.25°. Marginal changes, however, which, barring cataclysms, won’t question Red Bull’s overwhelming power at the start of the season.
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