The first day of the last race weekend of the season was much more chaotic expected. The first free practice session was used by the teams to run the youngwith temperatures however different from those of the evening sessions, in which qualifying and the race will be held. In the second, Sainz’s accident first and Hulkenberg’s after practically have halved the time on the track and everyone’s work has become hectic and decidedly partial, with great corrections to be done a little for everyone during the night.
Ferrari starts well, between the base set-up and Shwartzman
The Maranello team entered the second free practice session with a basic structure already quite centered for the SF-23. The car remains hard to handle in these conditions, between an aerodynamics that is still unstableit’s a sector suspensive which struggles to work in symbiosis with it, with Sainz’s accident highlighting exactly these problems. But the impression is that the set-up brought to the track is correct right path For maximize the potential of the package available. For this we must also give credit to the work of Shwartzmanpilot young but prepared and competentwhose work program he provided anyway useful information and confirmationsunlike what happened for example at home Red Bullwhere the debut of Dennis and Hadjar seems to have been very unprofitable, with Verstappen and Perez finding themselves in a Red Bull far from the ideal setup, and with the engineers from Milton Keynes who will have to “overturn” the car before tomorrow. Ferrari which therefore seemed to have good basic potential, albeit with only Leclerc on the track, but which also highlighted some critical issues now historic ones of the SF-23 project which will make life difficult for the two red pilots. The tendency of the red engineers is evident in attempting to lower the car a lot to recover load from the useful fund in tire management. That’s why they have to stiffen the suspension section, but the road surface of Yas Marina is far from smooth and the passage in some points becomes critical. In the last run, however, Leclerc seemed to have found a good balance, especially considering that he set the best time, and then continued for the mini long-run test without going back to the pitstherefore carrying out the fastest lap already with petrol for the entire stretch of the following session, 10 laps until we return after the departure tests if we counted correctly.
Central sector strong point of the SF-23
The the central sector seems to be the absolute strong point of the SF-23with a performance in traction e I lengthen truly remarkable, and the Power Unit delivered as early as possible, so much so that it generated clipping at the end of the straight. With the new tyre However, Leclerc also performed well in the first sector, where he lost everything in the first corner, probably due to imperfect tire preparation, and in the third, where Leclerc left a lot in the long turn 9with lateral load for a prolonged time, but recovers well in subsequent lenses restarts with straight wheelswhen load transfers are therefore on the longitudinal axis of the car, an aspect that we now know to prefer the SF-23. In the short pace test a lot seemed to depend from the attack time of each rider: those who started stronger then suffered greater degradation, confirming that the overheating management coverage will be crucial in the race.
Mercedes is very excited thinking about the race, for now they are suffering on the straight
Ferrari’s opponent for this weekend is clearly there Mercedeswith the open battle relating to second place in the constructors’ standings. The two Brackley cars carried out a program that was not totally aligned with the rest of the group, but what can clearly be seen from the data is a W14 definitely loaded from the point of view aerodynamicevidently in an attempt to maximize tire management in the race. The option of the greatest load seems the extra card available to Hamilton and Russell, but which also forces them to suffer decidedly in the central sectorwhere high aerodynamic drag relegates Russell to over 4 tenths from Leclerc. However, the Englishman suffered also in the third sectorwhere it emerges Mercedes’ weakness in managing the rear axleboth from the point of view of its effectiveness and from the point of view of tire management (remember that the soft tire is used at Yas Marina It’s hard to make a full turn without overheating).
McLaren in excellent form
Who actually goes out with the best impressions from Friday in Abu Dhabi it is the Woking team. Regardless of Norris’ second half, the MCL60 showed several strong pointsThe high load in the first sector (where Norris and Piastri have the best two times of the day), better efficiency than Mercedeswith a central sector where Norris loses to Leclerc only in the first sprint and not in the second, unlike Russell), and a good car overall, with Norris losing the best time only at the final corner. The low maximum speed of the papaya-coloured single-seater seems more than anything else to be due to a DRS which is never particularly effective when open, but up until the moment of opening the mobile wing the performance in the sprint showed similar characteristics to what was found in the last few races. From this Friday the potential to be Red Bull’s first challenger it seems to be in the hands of McLaren, with Ferrari and Mercedes fighting each other a little behind.
Red Bull benchmark to beat even if with a lot of work to do
We are obviously taking it for granted that from the third free practice onwards the RB19 returns to being the car to beatalthough, as explained above, it is necessary a complete reset on the structures. Beyond the various delivery tests that we often see done at Red Bull, Verstappen’s car had obvious bouncing problems in fast cornerswhich forced the driver to slow down a lot when cornering, and marked instability in brake not with straight wheels, with everyone load transfers evidently to be optimized. A trim baseline which continues to be the Achilles heel of Horner’s team, who however showed on almost every occasion, of know how to reverse the situation working between Friday and Saturday.
Third free practice key session
We will therefore see what will happen in the third free practice, where all the teams will try to make an important leap forward from a qualifying perspective and above all the race. Instead of the repeated fastest lap tests, pace tests can also be expected, similar to what is normally the second session of the weekend. The extent of each car’s leap forward will determine the final scale of values on the track for the last race of the year.
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