“They had a bit of a pace advantage,” Ferrari race director feels Red Bull top speed provides them ‘protection’ from rest of the grid

At the start of the season, the characteristics of the two best cars were clear: The Ferrari was better in the slower and medium-speed corners, while the Red Bull came out on top on the straights and in the faster corners. But as time has gone on, and the RB18 has lost a significant amount of weight, it’s pretty much surpassed the F1-75 overall.

Till the summer break, the car performances were fairly close together between the two teams, with the deficit for Ferrari coming from their own missteps. But since Belgium, the RB18 has been by far the superior car, perhaps affected by the porpoising technical directive: Red Bull didn’t have a lot of that at the start of the season, while Ferrari did, and had to adjust, which may have compromised their speed.

In Austin, their advantage was once again obvious, which as per Motorsport.com, led Ferrari race director Laurent Mekies to say: “It is not the first race where they are racing with a top speed advantage on all the other competitors. They managed to deal with that and certainly when there are some fights like today, it is an advantage. It is something that we always try to balance between lap time and top speed.”

Despite the 11.1-second stationary stop for Max Verstappen, he was able to recover and overtook both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton en route to victory. Mekies feels Red Bull’s top speed advantage gave them ‘protection’: “The bottom line is they had a bit of a pace advantage, as they did for most Sundays this year. They can have a very good protection from us to attack with their top speed.”

Also Read: ‘I had to change to an unnatural way,’ Carlos Sainz details his struggles with the 2022 Ferrari

Ferrari’s tyre degradation problem

In Austin, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen came out of their pitstops at the same time, with the Dutchman behind Leclerc. The Monegasque was able to keep him behind for 3 laps and stay in touch for a few more, but eventually, the Ferrari tyre degradation came in, and Verstappen eventually finished around 7.3 seconds ahead of Leclerc. They were both on the medium compounds.

Tyre degradation has been Ferrari’s worst enemy. In Suzuka, Leclerc stayed in touch with Verstappen for a few laps, but eventually finished around 26 seconds behind (+5secs penalty, so 31 technically), in what was a race of just around 40 minutes. It also seems to have gotten worse since Hungary.

But perhaps nowhere was Red Bull’s superiority so apparent as it was in Belgium, where Max Verstappen started 14th and Carlos Sainz started on pole position, but it was the former who triumphed, and in quite some style, as he pulled a gap of more than 26 seconds to Sainz in third, and even almost 18 seconds on his teammate.

The tyre wear issue remains a problem, and they will need to solve it to have a chance in 2023. The last three races provide them with a testing ground to improve their execution of the race weekends, which has also often been a problem for them.

Also Read: “Our weaknesses are exposed when tyres are more used in the race,” Ferrari race director expects a closely-fought US GP despite Carlos Sainz’s pole position

Also Read: ‘Very surprising to have this much of a lead’: Max Verstappen surprised at how Ferrari were unable to keep up with Red Bull