The season 2024 never ceases to amaze or to find reasons for interest on every day on the track. First day of free practice for the Singapore Grand Prix saw a curious one equivalence at the top of the table between the strongest team for at least two thirds of the season, and the team that seems most capable at the moment of climbing back up and trying to challenge it, the Ferrari. In particular Charles Leclercvery comfortable on this track, challenges head-on a Landon Norris appeared in great shape and determined to redeem himself from his teammate, a Oscar Plates who appeared to be in more difficulty than usual on a complicated track that requires experience like the one in Marina Bay. Norris seems galvanized by three things: he feels a good hand McLarenknows that the difficulties of the track could make the weekend of his teammate, in only his second year of Formula 1more complicated than usual and, presumably, he wants to take advantage of it and finally sees that the Verstappen and RedBull crisis shows no signs of abating, with the Dutchman having reported significant difficulties in the management of the car, evidently too rigid for a street track and which suffers enormous delays at every passage on the kerb and in the particularly slow and tortuous sections of the track. RB20 shines only in thelast curvethe only fast one, thus promising a battle on more traditional tracks such as Austinbut even this weekend the reigning World Champion team and driver seem forced to play largely on the defensive.
On the dry lap total equivalence, including errors
Returning to Norris Leclerc the challenge on dry lapeven though it was only a free trial, it appeared extremely pushed and at the same time totally leveled as we have rarely seen. In first sector Leclerc he achieved a time 7 thousandths better than Norrisalthough English has a better mileage than curve 3 and a better exit to curve 5however compensated by Leclerc with two very deep braking at turn 1 and at turn 5 itself. In central sector the two alternate corner by corner, with Leclerc better at 7 and 8, Norris at 9 and 10. The stretch between these last two, however, is in Norris’s favour both in terms of corner travel and traction and the Englishman comes out on top 60 thousandths of advantage. In the third sector the two continue to have very similar performances, even though Norris appears slightly faster in acceleration, but the curious thing is that both commit a mistake in their best lap mistake at turns 16 and 17, with Leclerc which arrives along the entrance of the first, while Norris loses the rear end on the exit of the second. The gap between the two immediately levels out again with a final gap on the lap of just 58 thousandths. Finding a winning trend for one of the two drivers is particularly difficult, although they perform slightly differently. For example Norris brings a little more speed on average in the middle of the curve, while Leclerc uses its technique of exploiting brake and accelerator modulation to improve front-end entry, rotation through the corner and traction exit, cancelling out the McLaren’s advantage in pure mid-corner speed.
Norris-Leclerc is also on the pace but the group is right behind
Coming to the analysis of the race pace It should be noted that with the various traffic problems it was complicated to adequately identify the laps and stints of the individual drivers, but at the end of the selection, some still emerged Norris And Leclerc like the fastest. The Ferrari appeared in great shape also on the wear and tear front and race pace on medium rubberwhile the McLaren he suffered a slight drop during the stint but he faced it with soft rubberthus still showing excellent performance in turn. In the end the averages say that Leclerc And Norris they are the first two separated by just 1 tenth, with a large group formed by Plates, Sainzthe two Mercedes And Verstappen about 4 tenths from them. Much behind instead PerezIt should be emphasized that the two Red Bull they performed their simulation on hard rubberwhile all the others, with the exception of Norris with the soft, on the medium tyre.
A head-to-head is looming. If confirmed, it will be good news for Ferrari
In conclusion of the 4 top teams on this Friday of Singapore the one in the most difficulty still appears to be the Red Bull. Mercedes instead it highlighted more than one set-up problem, with a lot of difficulty in finding a good balance, often affected by a long-standing understeer. Ferrari And McLaren instead they seem to be at the top. Norris And Leclerc They both said they didn’t have any major set-up changes to make, as their respective cars already responded very well to their inputs. Sainz And Plates they seem slightly behind their respective teammates, but the Spaniard was also slowed down by a brake problemwhich clearly takes away confidence on a track like that. As for Piastri, it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if after the learning Friday he showed up in qualifying as competitive as we’ve seen him in the last races. So the premises are for a extremely leveled four-way challenge for the first two rows, and if so for the Ferrari it could only be a good news: the fact that for about two thirds of the season the McLaren it was the best single-seater is an established fact, but the new fund and the new wing put on the track by the Maranello team seem to be steps in the right direction, enough to close the gap with the current leaders of the class. Of course, we are talking about probabilities: a lot still has to happen this weekend, with the variable weather forecast not to be lost sight of, and the real checks on the updated aerodynamic system of the red car will only come in Austinon a track with long and fast corners, but this Friday is certainly promising both for the Ferrari that for the show.
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