A scorching Sunday for Ferrari in Barcelona, not only for the 37 ° C in the air that put a strain on the tenacity of the fans crowded in the stands. Charles Leclerc and the Scuderia di Maranello saw their dreams of glory vanish when a member of the Power Unit lost the F1-75 while the Red was easily leading the race. However, the Prancing Horse team leaves Spain with the awareness that the update package introduced in Catalonia has made it possible to make a substantial leap in performance to the car. The premature conclusion of Leclerc’s race prevented him from witnessing the direct confrontation with rivals from Red Bull, which would have been particularly indicative on one of the most complete and convincing tracks in the championship.
In the traditional Sunday post-Grand Prix debriefing, Mattia Binotto could not provide particular details on the fault that stopped Leclerc’s race: “I can’t say much about the engine problem, because we too have to try to understand and analyze it and we could only do it tomorrow morning in Maranello when the power unit is back, so at this moment I think every hypothesis is wrong. Rightly, the aspect of reliability should never be taken lightly, we will understand if it can have implications or not, but now it is premature. […] The failure came suddenly, so we haven’t had any signs. We first found out on Charles’ radio. “ Still on the subject of engines, the number one of the Cavallino finally confirmed what had already been suggested in recent weeks, regarding the insufficiency of three power units to complete the entire calendar of 22 races: “Three power units are certainly too few. To manage the season correctly, Mercedes last year proved they need to get to six. It is true that we had used three in 2021, but we also played a part in a championship. It would not be surprising if we reached four, when others reached six last year fighting for a World Cup. Three is a threshold from which penalties are then paid on the grid, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not manageable ”.
However, Binotto wanted to grasp the positive signs that emerged over the Spanish weekend. The team principal confirmed that the updates introduced to Montmelò worked as expected, even saying he was confident for the next developments in the pipeline in Maranello: “For sure the package works well and I am confident it will give us a good basis for the next races. Then it will be up to us to do well on all fronts on the weekend of the race itself. Further on, I have no doubts that further developments will be needed, but I don’t want to talk now about when they will arrive. However, it is optimistic to think that this group was able to make a good car at the beginning of 2022 but that it also knew how to develop it, because the car is still competitive with the first package we bring. We have not lost ourselves, we have been able to address the correct developments and if we have managed to do so so far I am confident that this team will be able to do it even further on ”. As always, the spending ceiling will affect Maranello’s development plans: “I think somehow the budget is dictating what we can do. Certainly we have to watch it carefully and we cannot waste money. We will bring updates when they are significant and not small things to each race. We will keep this approach ”.
In the race there were positive signs on the tire management front for Ferrari. In the first stint Leclerc was the fastest on the track, although Binotto believes that what he has seen should be analyzed in light of the not exactly new tires used by Verstappen: “When it comes to tires, we mustn’t forget that Charles started on new tires and that Max’s had been used, albeit briefly, in his last attempt in qualifying. The comparison was perhaps not even direct on the soft ones. What matters most in our analyzes, however, is the rider’s comment, very positive, he felt comfortable when he pushed, and especially the level of degradation. Charles did a very long stint on the soft tires, when his direct rivals had already stopped, demonstrating that the soft tires at that moment, despite the pace he had held, were still alive and this I think is the most important aspect. Today we did not degrade the tires like in the last few races, regardless of the direct confrontation. On the medium, from the little we have seen, the tire behaved well and the times were there. I am confident that we would have been competitive with those too ”. Overall, the F1-75 nevertheless expressed significant improvements in race pace compared to Friday, but the Cavallino team principal did not want to emphasize the set-up changes made between Friday and Saturday: “We haven’t changed the set-up much since Friday. We simply adapted to changing conditions and the new package based on the data we collected, a process we typically do on a Friday night in the simulator, trying out different set-up options. We certainly did some tests in the various free practice sessions and then decided which was the best. I would not emphasize that there has been a big change ”.
Mattia Binotto was also asked about some anomalous operations carried out in the Red Bull box before the race: “I can imagine that they were linked to the temperature of the petrol in the tank, which must be above 10 ° C below ambient temperature and it seems to me that by regulation this must be checked at every moment during the event, not only when the machine is running. track, but also when it is in the garage. For this reason I don’t think that a flame to try to heat the tank would be enough, because the petrol should always be no lower than 10 ° C compared to the environment. I can only trust the FIA, because it is difficult to explain what we have seen, since, as I said, the fuel should always be above that minimum threshold. I’m pretty sure the FIA is satisfied and checked. Perhaps it should be asked directly of them ”.
Ferrari is now looking to the rest of the championship, but despite the large gap in the standings between Leclerc and Sainz, Binotto does not believe that it is still time to give Scuderia orders: “What he dictates above all I think is the track. Right now it’s a problem I’m not asking myself. Both have the right to do well, also Carlos. When there will be the opportunity for him we will try to seize it “. In closing, the number one of the Cavallino expressed his reflections on the theme of the next scheduled race: “Monaco is a race unto itself. What we have seen here is not necessarily relevant, so much so that I think Mercedes will be part of the fight in Monte Carlo, because it’s a car that has load and traction, so I wouldn’t be surprised if George or Lewis could do a good race in a citizen like Monte Carlo. It will be important to have a clean weekend, as will the qualification and not find the traffic. There are many details that will make the difference that weekend ”.
Also present at the Ferrari debriefing Charles Leclercwho expressed their emotions after the retirement: “Obviously it’s always a disappointment and when you fight for a championship you know that all points are important. Over the course of the season, however, I know that these are things that happen and I am sure that everyone is working hard to solve the problem as soon as possible. I think everyone was as disappointed as I was today, so there was no reason to get angry out of the car. I just went to encourage the mechanics, because they were pretty down in the dumps“.
Leclerc believes that without the engine failure, victory was absolutely within reach: “In the laps I did, everything was going very well. I think it would have been difficult for the others to catch up, because a certain gap had already opened. With the degradation on the red tires, we were also able to do a little more laps than they did. Overall I think we had the race under control“. Paradoxically then, the Monegasque’s mood is better than it was in Florida: “I feel better after this weekend than I did after the last two. On the one hand there was the problem that we still have to identify and I am disappointed with it, but on the other hand there were enough positive signs over the weekend, such as our pace in qualifying. Then the new package worked as expected, which is not always taken for granted, without forgetting the race pace and tire management. In the last few races we have struggled enough with wear compared to Red Bull and today it went better. In these situations, I think it is good to also look at the positive sides ”.
Carlos Sainz finished the Spanish Grand Prix in fourth position. The home hero paid for a mistake in turn 4 in the opening bars, which the Spaniard revealed to have damaged his F1-75: “I don’t know how to quantify, but after the error the machine was damaged, data engineers could see it. I wouldn’t go into details, but it wouldn’t have been the same if they hadn’t told me from the wall. With a full race ahead, mentally it was not easy to have to recover up to the points, as well as regain confidence in the car after another moment like that. It wasn’t easy, but I did my best. It was a long race, I tried to get back into the top five. I also thought about the podium, but they were too far away to give my fans a podium finish “. Sainz said he never got in tune with the Red on the Catalan track: “The car was quite at the limit for me in the corner entry all weekend. The combination of the wind and the dirty air of the front car made me lose the rear and spin. These are things that happen: we will learn and move forward “.
“To explain why I find it difficult to adapt to the car I would have to enter into many personal details, also breaking privacy and other confidential aspects”Continued the Spaniard. “In general, however, from the on-boards I think you can see from the images that I don’t drive naturally like last year and that the car is a bit too focused on the front end than I would like. But it goes like this, either you adapt or adapt the car a little more to your preferences. Both of these take time, experience and mistakes. I am now in this learning process and will try to correct myself as soon as possible. By my side I have Charles, who is doing a great job with this car, with impressive lap times and driving style. A little bit I’m trying to emulate him and a little bit to do according to my habits to be faster ”.
Like Binotto and Leclerc, Sainz also does not lose optimism in view of the future: “I maintain the positivity and motivation to make things turn in my favor as soon as possible. It wasn’t easy. From the on-board of the error I think you can see how hard it is to control this machine and extract the maximum from it. It is a completely new challenge in my Formula 1 career […] There was a combination of bad luck and mistakes on my partbut I think that in the future things will go in the right direction, whether it is suddenly or little by little ”. So eyes focused on Montecarlo, scheduled in just one week: “In Munich I always feel confident and have always been strongbut you also need confidence in the car and the right balance. Until I have found them and tried how the car behaves in Monte Carlo, I don’t know what will happen. But I will approach the weekend as always “.
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