One of Ferrari’s recurring problems in the 2022 season is that, despite great one-lap speed that has given them eleven pole positions (six from Leclerc and two from Sainz ), they have worse tire management than their rivals, which has left the scoreboard of victories in ‘only’ four at this point in the course.
Mercedes stands out in this aspect, and Red Bull, with whom they have often fought for victories, also punishes the tires less, which is key not only in the pace, but also in the race strategy.
This Sunday those of the Cavallino gave up again, and on social networks a photo of how smooth the intermediate tires of Charles Leclerc ended up compared to those of Verstappen . In fact, the Monegasque suffered during the second half of the race and was only able to defend himself against Sergio Pérez on the final lap, skipping the last chicane, which would lead to a penalty.
As soon as he got out of the car, at parc fermé , in the interview with the top three, Leclerc already lamented the tire management that the 2022 Ferrari F1-75 has, which prevents him from fighting face to face with his rivals: “From the Lap five onwards, to be honest, it was all downhill, I really struggled a lot with the tyres. A bit like the last race. We’re very strong warming up the tyres. But then after three or four laps we just destroyed them.”
“So I suffered a lot, and it was really a pain in the last few laps. Of course, congratulations to Max on his second title, we’ll keep pushing until the end. But it’s obviously frustrating, after four laps we had no pace.
However, the team principal, Mattia Binotto , is not sure if it is a characteristic of the Maranello car or if it is due to how much its driver pushes in the opening stages of the grand prix.
“On tire degradation, we had already seen it on Friday. I think by pushing too hard on the first lap, we just destroyed the front tires in a way that was not possible to recover.
“So we need to check that together with Charles and the engineers. Maybe he was pushing too hard to try and close the gap, maybe he destroyed the tires and as a consequence he just didn’t have the pace for the next few laps.”
“One lap over I think the pace and speed were there. But in terms of tire management, we could certainly have done something different,” Binotto concluded.
Leclerc got off to a better start than Max Verstappen, but the champion kept his foot flat and came out ahead at the first corner. Then, on the restart after the long red flag, despite the fact that the Ferrari seemed to be a threat, the Dutchman gradually slipped away.
“We were very fast for four or five laps but unfortunately the race was a bit longer than that and the front tires just fell apart after four or five laps and it was just about surviving to the end,” Leclerc lamented.
“The end of the race was extremely difficult. Obviously Checo was pushing from behind and I was struggling with my two front tyres, so yeah I ended up making a mistake at the end, but we were struggling a lot,” he concluded.
With four races to go, Leclerc is third in the 2022 F1 Drivers’ Championship, just one point behind Checo Pérez and 45 points ahead of George Russell.
