How Ferrari placed themselves out of the Title Fight
Ferrari are almost 100 points apart from Red Bull in the Championship
More than a week has passed after the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, a track where Red Bull probably delivered the ultimate blow to the Championship. After a poor performance in the French GP, Ferrari’s team principal Mattia Binotto claimed that their aim was to get a 1–2. But that 1–2 turned into a 4–6. And this happened on a, on paper, favourable track for Ferrari. Several things came into play, but with Red Bull having their worst Saturday of the season things could’ve gone better for the Italians.
Despite not starting with any of their drivers in the first place, Ferrari had a good panorama on Race Day, after Max Verstappen qualified in tenth place, ahead of his teammate Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez in eleventh. They were on the verge of an important result that could place them in a good position to fight for the Championship. But it happened again, they screwed it up.
They started the race with the medium tyre. A different strategy than both Mercedes and Red Bull, who started with the soft tyre. At the beginning it looked good, especially for Charles Leclerc, who after gaining some pace, saw George Russell pit and go for the yellow tyre, this allowed the Monegasque to gain the first position and go a little bit longer with his first stint.
Then, after his pitstop, Leclerc had a ‘younger’ tyre, that made him able to pass Russell. The difference was about 4 laps between their tyres, so Leclerc gained the first position and was leading at the half of the race. His teammate Carlos Sainz Jr struggled more with the pace but was in third place.
Everything was looking good for Ferrari. But then, the drivers went to the pits for their second change of tyres, Russell, Verstappen, and Perez opted for the medium, but Leclerc had to use the hard. Since they must use at least two different types of tyres on the race. This made a huge difference in the end result.
The turning point
Despite having a fresher tyre, Ferrari made Leclerc pit. They knew if they remained more time on track, Max would gain an advantage, and then Charles would have to come from behind. On paper, that strategy is good, but only if both drivers are under the same conditions. But that was not the case. They had 2 options, used soft tyres or new hard tyres, they went for the latter. The result was a driver that couldn’t control the car with a tyre that wasn’t easy to set on temperature. This, and brilliant laps for Max Verstappen after his pitstop made Leclerc lose P1 to the Dutch.
Then, on Lap 54, it was clear that those hard tyres weren’t working, since George Russell, who did a similar strategy to Verstappen, surpassed Charles. After this, Ferrari admitted their mistake, and to avoid a greater loss, they decided to do a third pitstop for a soft tyre that ultimately placed Leclerc in the sixth position.
For Carlos Sainz the strategy was different, Ferrari opted to keep him on track a little bit longer and then he pitted for a used soft tyre. The Spaniard had a bad pitstop with a 4.6 stop time that dropped him 8 seconds behind George Russell, but with a better and younger tyre. But surprisingly, his pace wasn’t good enough, and he couldn’t catch Russell. Even so, when he was getting a little bit closer, Lewis Hamilton was chasing him with fresher tyres after he was on a similar strategy but having pitted some laps later.
Eventually, the British completed his move on him and passed, then he proceeded to do the same with his teammate and got into second place. We will never know if with a proper pitstop the history would’ve been different for Sainz…
Conclusion
The reality is that track conditions changed radically because of the weather, causing lower temperatures. Under these circumstances, Red Bull were clearly the strongest team, but their bad results in the qualification session opened the door for Ferrari. But they didn't take advantage of it and managed the race horribly. In the end, Red Bull are 97 points ahead of them, and in the Drivers Championship, Max Verstappen has an advantage of 80 points over Charles Leclerc.
Things could’ve been very different, and not just in this race, but Ferrari remain consistent with their mistakes. Now, the panorama has changed so drastically that Mercedes are closer to Ferrari than Ferrari are closer to Red Bull.
Nine races to go…
Do you think Ferrari and Leclerc still have chances to win the title or is it already over?
Thank you for reading! I will leave other stories below in case you may be interested, feel free to check them out:
