Why Ferrari is back in contention in Austria
After France served up one of the dullest Formula One races in recent memory, the Red Bull Ring provided as entertaining a second practice session as you’re ever likely to see. What’s more, amid the red flags and splintered carbon fibre there were signs that Ferrari is genuinely quick in Austria.
The accidents of Max Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel meant none of the top drivers completed a clean qualifying simulation, skewing the times somewhat. Individual sectors were completed flat out and paint part of the picture, but no one completed all ten corners without some kind of mistake or caveat masking their true pace.
Charles Leclerc, who finished the session at the top of the standings, didn’t complete the final sector of his lap at full speed as he was behind teammate Vettel when the No.5 Ferrari spun through the final corner. Bottas, who set the second best time overall, clocked his fastest lap on the medium tyres before his big shunt on the softs, and Lewis Hamilton was through the first two sectors of his quick lap when the red flag for his teammate’s accident forced him to abort and return to the pits. As a result, his fastest lap was set on the hards.
Pierre Gasly was the only driver from the top three teams who completed a flying lap without some kind of interruption, hence a third place position in the final classification that flattered to deceive. But based on what we know about the top three teams from the first half of the season it is still possible to fill in the blanks and piece together a competitive picture from Friday’s running.
In the first two sectors it looks as though Ferrari has the fastest car. We know the Ferrari has a significant straight-line speed advantage over Mercedes and the opening part of the lap is made up of two long straights strung together by Turns 1, 3 and 4. High-speed corners have also been a relative strength of Ferrari this year, so it’s no surprise it maintained its advantage through the sweeping section in the second sector of Turns 5, 6 and 7.
Vettel made a mistake in the final corner, ruining both his and Leclerc’s fastest laps, but his opening two sectors were relatively clean and his combined time through them was a 45.041. Leclerc was even faster up until that point of the lap with a 44.986 before his compromised final sector. In comparison to Hamilton, who also completed the first two sectors of his hot lap relatively cleanly before the red flag came out for Bottas’ mistake, set a 45.395 — over 0.4s slower than Leclerc. Drilling down deeper into the data, he lost 0.190s in the first sector to Leclerc and 0.219s in the second sector.
However, Mercedes looks quicker than Ferrari in the final sector, which is made up of two high-speed corners and only short sections of straight. There was no soft tyre comparison due to the various issues impacting the top four drivers, but the difference on the harder compound tyres was around 0.2s — a decent amount but not enough to make up for the 0.4s through the first two sectors.
“Today has shown that they are either with us or slightly ahead of us,” Hamilton said of Ferrari after the session. “It’s one of those circuits where it’s very, very close. It’s the small tenths that make the difference, so it’s quite packed up at the front.
“I think it’s definitely going to be a real challenge — the Ferraris have been quick all year on the straights and the corners don’t seem to be hampering them much, so it will be interesting. It’s OK, we will keep fighting and it is a track where you can follow closer at least.”
Of course, all the usual caveats apply after Friday practice, such as engine modes and fuel loads, but the pace looks genuinely close over one lap.
Although data was limited on Mercedes’ side due to Bottas’ accident, the long-run data suggests Mercedes may still be holding an ace up its sleeve. Unlike one-lap pace on a Friday which comes down to one lap (or in this case piecing together a lap from sector times), long-run pace is calculated as an average over multiple laps and with cars in more comparable engine settings and fuel levels to simulate race conditions.
Over a 14-lap run on soft tyres, Hamilton averaged a 1:09.069 while Ferrari’s Leclerc averaged a 1:09.202 over 12 laps. Following those runs, Hamilton went on to the hard tyres and Leclerc moved to the softs — making comparisons tricky on the harder compounds — but for the record Leclerc averaged a 1:08.695 on the mediums and Hamilton managed 1:08.754 on the hards. After ruining his set of softs with his spin, Vettel went straight to the hard tyres meaning his average of 1:09.879 on relatively heavy fuel offers little in the way of comparison.
Elsewhere, McLaren looks competitive once more but dedicated Carlos Sainz solely to long-runs as he is due to start from the back of the grid due to an engine change. Renault and Haas appear to be struggling.