{"id":1410773,"date":"2024-03-29T09:44:48","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T09:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/?p=1410773"},"modified":"2024-03-29T12:42:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T12:42:35","slug":"mph-why-suzuka-will-be-moment-of-truth-for-ferrari-and-mercedes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/single-seaters\/f1\/mph-why-suzuka-will-be-moment-of-truth-for-ferrari-and-mercedes\/","title":{"rendered":"MPH: Why Suzuka will be moment of truth for Ferrari and Mercedes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Melbourne last weekend<\/a> gave us a valuable third race\u2019s-worth of data in evaluating the patterns of performance between the teams.<\/p>\n

The Red Bull\/Ferrari Comparison<\/strong><\/h4>\n

We found out that in races where graining is the main limitation of the tyres \u2013 and not thermal degradation as was the case in Bahrain<\/a> \u2013 the Ferrari<\/a> is much more competitive with the Red Bull<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back in Bahrain, Carlos Sainz<\/a> had observed, \u201c[Red Bull\u2019s] deg on the hard was about the same as ours on the medium.\u201d In Jeddah<\/a>, the tyres could be raced hard and the only tyre differentiator was how quickly they could be brought up to temperature, with Charles Leclerc<\/a> observing there that, \u201cThere was no deg really. The only difference was that [Red Bull] could get the temperature quicker than us. If you look, you see that\u2019s where they made the gap and after that I was able to keep it constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Albert Park<\/a>, it was different again: graining of both front and rear tyres on all three compounds. In this challenge, Ferrari actually looked marginally better than Red Bull (which had suffered a messy Friday and lost valuable set up laps as a consequence, mainly, of Max Verstappen<\/a> damaging his car over the Turn 10 kerbs in FP1).<\/p>\n

\n \"Overhead\n
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Ferrari’s “huge step” on tyre wear was evident in Australia<\/p>\n

\n Ferrari\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

Graining tends to occur with a combination of a smooth track surface, without much granular imperfection of the tarmac for the tread to grab hold of, relatively low lateral loads and long tyre-cooling straights. The structure of the tyre doesn\u2019t get much of a work out and remains relatively cool and inelastic and so the tread does not get the usual support from the sidewalls bending. Instead it gets dragged across the track surface and tears itself. This increases the wear massively and that becomes the limitation in how hard the driver can push.<\/p>\n

Being in front in clear air is massively helpful in enabling the driver to control the graining. So being competitive enough to run in the lead will tend to flatter how well the car looks after the tyres when graining is the limitation. Sainz had put himself in position to do this, helped of course by Verstappen\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made a huge step on this,\u201d confirmed Frederic Vasseur when comparing to last year\u2019s car. \u201cI think it’s more on the consistency between the two compounds or between one stint and the other, the car is much easier to drive, much easier to read – also for the drivers. And, by the way, much easier to develop. That\u2019s probably the biggest step that we did, to have something that we can… not easily manage, but at least to have a good read of the car quite early into the weekend.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Related article<\/h2>\n \n\t\n
\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Williams\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tF1<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWilliams took the Brawn GP ‘no spare chassis’ gamble \u2014 and lost\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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In 2009, Brawn raced to victory on its grand prix debut in Melbourne \u2014 with no spare chassis to fall back on. 15 years later, Williams encountered a similar yet riskier problem. Mark Hughes<\/strong> explains<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
By\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMark Hughes<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n<\/article>\n <\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m not sure we can say the tyre management was the main focus of the development of this car. What is true is that last year the main issue was the fact that the car was very difficult to drive and then into the race if you have to do a step you are doing mistakes, damaging the tyres, and then it’s kind of a negative spiral. This year it’s much easier to read, to know where is the limit and to stay just a bit below. And when you have to do tyre management it’s much, much easier and they are much more under control than they were last year when they were a bit more in survival mode. Doing this, you are killing the tyres quite quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, even last year\u2019s Ferrari looked pretty good when graining was the limitation. This was the case at Las Vegas<\/a> where Leclerc only lost the opportunity of defeating Verstappen through the timing of a safety car. This car has retained the good front mechanical grip in slow corners, which is surely part of that trait. But it has added better aerodynamic balance in the faster corners.<\/p>\n

In Suzuka<\/a> next weekend it\u2019s all going to be about rear thermal degradation, as in Bahrain. The Esses \u2013 fast, long and with no respite between each turn in the sequence – are the dominant factor. Performance through there largely determines tyre degradation. If you lack downforce the roughness of the asphalt will usually ensure you\u2019ll be damaging the rears. As soon as they are too hot, they lose the performance forever, lap by lap, regardless of how much tread they have left. Suzuka is one of those tracks where the tyre can be completely useless despite still having most of its tread. It\u2019s all about how the car can control those temperatures. As such, we might expect Red Bull to return to the fore. It will be a stern test for Ferrari \u2013 and should therefore give us a yet-more refined read on the competitive state of play between the two main contenders in the year ahead.<\/p>\n

Mercedes’ woes continue<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Mercedes<\/a> was as uncompetitive in Australia as it had been in Jeddah. But for different reasons. In Saudi, it was all about how much time was lost in a particular sequence of fast corners to aerodynamic bouncing. In Melbourne the time loss was in the slow corners. But only in certain conditions, as tech director James Allison conceded after seeing the car be very competitive in FP3 and nowhere in qualifying: \u201cWe are starting to see a pattern with the car,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a period in the weekend where we\u2019re feeling good about the car but then in the paying sessions in qualifying and race it slips through our fingers. The strongest correlation we can make at the moment is that when the day is warm and therefore the tyre temperature is coming up with the track temperature, that\u2019s when the competitiveness drops. The times we\u2019ve been good have all been in the sessions which are the coolest. That gives us some clues about what we need to do moving forwards.<\/p>\n

\n \"Mercedes\n
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Slow corners hampered Mercedes at Albert Park<\/p>\n

\n LAT via Mercedes\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cWe need to move the temperature range and the temperature balance front to rear more in our favour. But if you conclude that having exhausted the degrees of freedom that you have available to you in set-up terms that you still need to go further, then it gets harder because that will be underlying characteristics in, say, the aerodynamic map or suspension characteristics that is aggravating a particular feature. [The fix] can be either quick and dirty or a little more involved and complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suzuka next weekend will likely be when we find which it is.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ferrari said it would have challenged for victory in Melbourne even if Max Verstappen hadn’t retired; Mercedes has identified its weak spot. Mark Hughes<\/strong> says that Suzuka will reveal if either team can hope to challenge Red Bull throughout 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":752,"featured_media":1410775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118712,122078],"tags":[34098,36403],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/752"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1410773"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410781,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410773\/revisions\/1410781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1410775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}