F1 Tech | Ferrari and McLaren in a league of their own in Australia

Ferrari with a very stable car in Melbourne 

Starting from Ferrari, the Maranello based team well impressed on a circuit that fits the SF-25 very well. The Albert Park Circuit, in fact, is a characterised by a very long straight in the middle sector with the first and last sector requiring more downforce to tackle all the high-speed corners and some mechanical grip for traction phases out of the 3 slow corners of the circuit: turn 3, 13 and 15. Moreover, the asphalt is quite smooth and with a low level of abrasiveness, not generating a high level of deg on tyres and that’s why Pirelli adopted the C3, the C4 and the C5 for this weekend. 

All these factors, matched with a great preparation work done at the factory by the team, made the SF-25 extremely quick since the very first few laps in FP1, especially in Leclerc’s hands. The car showed a very well-balanced behaviour in all medium downforce and high-speed corners of the circuit, proof of a very good level of downforce generated by the floor, which was run at a very close distance to the ground. The team also did a very good job from the mechanical perspective: despite the fine-tuning issues shown during testing with the new pull-rod front suspension, the work done at the simulator by the drivers helped, as the SF-25 had a very good grip in slow corners and in traction phases during today’s practice sessions, both on the medium C4 and on the soft C5. 

The car showed a relatively low top speed at the end of the long straight in the second sector, but this is caused by very low engine mappings, a typical move down by Ferrari on Friday’s practice sessions to not show their real level to competitors. 

This car behaviour also translated in the race pace simulations where both Hamilton and Leclerc, despite a very early introduction to the tyres as instructed by their race engineers, where able to set times in line with Norris and Piastri, being also quicker at times (as highlighted in the table below). 

The trend shown seems promising for Ferrari even though Team Principal Fred Vasseur preached calm at the end of the first day: “There’s still a long way to qualifying and a long way to the Sunday race. Stay calm. I’m sure that will apply to everybody, but it’s far too early to draw any conclusion about who will be champion or win on Sunday.” 

These words are particularly important, also because conditions will massively change between today and Sunday, with very hot temperatures expected for Saturday (around 33°C of air temperature) and with rain and colder temps (around 23°C air) for race day. During previous seasons we had the possibility to appreciate how sensible to weather conditions these cars have always been, so there’s a high chance that hierarchies among top teams will change during the weekend. 

McLaren with a strong race pace simulation 

Moving onto analysing McLaren’s performance, the Woking team looked to be at Ferrari’s level during the first two practice sessions, with a very strong race pace simulation and a good car behaviour in the qualifying simulations as well. However, the team led by Andrea Stella did a different program during the FP1, as they tested two different versions of rear and beam wing on Norris’ and Piastri’s cars, to find out which spec best fitted the quick nature of the Albert Park Circuit. 

While Norris adopted a medium-low downforce rear wing matched with a double element beam wing (already tested in Bahrain), Piastri tested a medium-downforce rear wing, characterised by a deeper spoon in the central portion of the mainplane, matched with a single element beam wing (red and blue arrows in the drawing below). The level of downforce generated by the rear wing-beam wing complex was probably very similar, but the version fitted on Norris’ car probably offered a higher top speed. 

Looking at the weather forecast for the weekend, the team probably decided to sacrifice a little bit of performance in tomorrow’s qualifying to have a high level of grip in the wet during Sunday’s race (higher downforce generally translates in higher grip on the wet). As a direct consequence, both cars adopted the rear wing and beam wing spec Piastri tested in the morning, showing a very good car’s stability. The MCL39 looked very strong both in the middle sector and in almost every straight despite the medium downforce rear wing, proof that during the winter the team managed to found some extra top speed that they lacked last season. 

The race pace simulations looked promising for them as well and showed off that McLaren and Ferrari will be in close contention for important places for the rest of the weekend. 

Red Bull: the balance issues slowing the RB21 down

Moving on to analyse Red Bull’s performance in today practice sessions, the day for the Milton Keynes engineers was less than smooth. Even though the RB21 behaved well during FP1, its behaviour completely changed during the afternoon session, after some wrong set-up changes were made during the break, as explained by Helmut Marko in the post practice interviews: “The performance of the car this morning was better. So the changes we did, the car was more nervous, was going from under to oversteer. So we can't do the times of McLaren. I guess we are two, three tenths behind. So I guess the maximum tomorrow is row two.”

His words should normally be taken with a pitch of salt, but today they seem more realistic than ever. The RB21 looked very unbalanced in the afternoon, struggling to get to the apex in the slow speed and eventually sliding at the exit of those corners. Engineers tried to make a few changes during the session, with multiple anti-roll bar changes and changes in height both on the front and rear suspensions. The balance issues seemed bigger in the qualifying simulations with the new soft tyre, as both Verstappen and Lawson were struggling for grip. The two drivers also tested the two different rear wing versions used in Bahrain, with Verstappen adopting the new one (upper one in the drawing below) for the whole day and Lawson using the old spec (lower one in the drawing below). 

Despite the bad day, however, it’s notorious how Red Bull’s engineers are usually able to find the right balance overnight, so it’s still too early to condemn them, as they may be in contention for pole tomorrow and for the win on Sunday, as Verstappen’s race pace simulation was good. The weather in the race can play a big role for Red Bull as well, as they could get benefit from the shuffling of the cards that rain usually brings.  

Mercedes with tyre warm up problems in qualifying simulations

Last but not least, Mercedes had a decent day. The team seemed to struggle a lot in extracting performance from the new soft tyre in the qualifying simulations (an aspect that we already appreciated in Bahrain), but their race pace simulations with the hard tyre were great, as both Antonelli and Russell were able to set very competitive and constant lap times, proof that the W16 probably struggles to warm up the tyres for the single pace simulation but gently look after them over the long distance. For them the main concern will be to find a way to wake the front tyres as quickly as possible for both qualifying, in order to start Sunday’s race as up as possible, and the race, to avoid losing too much time in the first phases of the Grand Prix. 

In conclusion, a great weekend of racing awaits, with Ferrari and McLaren already in a very close fight against each other and with Red Bull and Mercedes that could join the party if they manage to solve their issues. The unpredictable weather could play a crucial role as well, so we can just sit and wait for what predicts to be a great show.