By Carlo Platella
The day of testing in Monte Carlo sees the Ferrari-Leclerc duo stand out, never so in tune as on Friday in Monegasque. The qualities of the Red coincide with the weaknesses of the Red Bull, wild on city bumps to the point of giving Max Verstappen a headache. The picture at the end of Friday is clear and sharp, but the historic evolution of the Principality’s track anticipates a night of long work for the teams, with the possibility of a rewrite of the hierarchies in time for qualifying.
Question of heights
The ability of cars to absorb the curbs and dips in the city’s asphalt is one of the big issues in Monte Carlo. The game is played on compromise between mechanics and aerodynamics, with the need to satisfy two different needs. On the one hand, we want to avoid raising the car too much, considering how much ground-effect Formula 1 cars lose aerodynamic load as their heights from the ground increase. To keep the car low, however, it is necessary to stiffen the suspension, thus sacrificing curb digestion and mechanical grip.
Already on the eve of Carlos Sainz expected a competitive Red on this particular front: “I don’t know the set-up of the others, I don’t know what their compromise is between aerodynamic load and curb digestion compared to us. On street circuits, however, we tend to find a good balanceeven if I don’t know how the others are compared to us.” A quality that can also be appreciated from the view of the press room, from which the Ferraris emerge as the cars that are least disturbed on the valley entering the Rascasse.
The picture is reversed compared to that of the last edition, when Charles Leclerc complained about the car’s poor handling, whose behavior on bumps and curbs embodied the main deterioration compared to the 2022 F1-75. Red Bull now finds itself in a similar situation, low, rigid and difficult to tame on bumpy city asphalt. “I’m jumping like a kangarooit gives me a headache!”Max Verstappen’s exasperation, to which is added the complaints of Sergio Perez struggling with poor grip at the front.
Homework for the night
Last weekend in Imola the world champions demonstrated their ability to reverse the racing set-up, putting themselves back in front of everyone. However, the undertaking appears even more prohibitive in the Principality, where it is essential to gradually build confidence in the car to increasingly move the limit, something difficult to do with a last-minute set-up change. “After winning in Singapore, I know how important it is to get out on track, do well straight away and have a good feeling with the car from FP1”Sainz anticipated on Thursday. “You have to find the rhythm and to do that you have to take risks already in free practice, to see how the car and the tires are set up”
Words, those of the Spaniard, which underline how in Monte Carlo it is counterproductive to hide one’s potential. Lewis Hamilton’s second place of the day thus gains value, 2 tenths behind Leclerc, the only one to keep the delay from the Ferrari driver under 4 tenths thanks to a W15 which he says is much more predictable and reliable than in the past. However, Ferrari and Mercedes will have to confirm themselves on the most important day without being able to rest on their laurels, but by continuing to improve the set-up to anticipate the enormous evolution of the track. “The circuit evolves at an unparalleled pace. You have to guess what the grip level will be in the next session, what changes to make to the set-up, how the car and the track will behave”the warning of a veteran of the Principality such as Fernando Alonso.
Trust to be found
As always, the teams will carry out part of the work remotely in their respective factories. Thanks to the hours spent on the simulator, Red Bull had managed to turn the Imola weekend around, but never like in Monaco had the feedback on the track they are not replicable in the virtual worldsuch as the exact undulation of the asphalt and the possibility of lowering the car. “There are some things you can’t discover until you get to the track”, recalls Hamilton.
Even more than just the aerodynamic numbers, among the streets of the Principality the discriminating factor for performance is trust in the car, something absolutely not assessable on the simulator. Proof of this is the end-of-day ranking, with five drivers from as many different teams in the top five positions, and with large gaps between teammates, reconfirming the absolute importance of the human factor. “It’s the only qualifying of the year where you take the corners at a speed you’ve never experienced before.” Phrase, that of Fernando Alonso, which emphasizes the importance of harmony between man and machine.
All attention on Saturday will be for the Ferrari-Leclerc pair, with the awareness however that to confirm the verdict of the first day a lot of work will still be needed. There is also great curiosity about what the pole time will be, considering how, given the same session, today’s times are 1.2 seconds faster than on Friday of the last edition, compared to the average improvement of 7-8 tenths appreciated at this start of season. Never like in this year’s qualifying, cars and drivers could actually run in the Principality “a speed never experienced before”.
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