Ferrari and Red Bull were closely matched at the Bahrain Grand Prix, however analysis of the GPS data showed that the two cars had very different pace characteristics.
The Ferrari seemed to be better under acceleration and in the low-speed corners, while the Red Bull excelled at the end of the straights and in the high-speed corners.
With the belief that Ferrari has the best engine on the grid, the performance differences are intriguing, as the lower levels of downforce should not have allowed Red Bull to overpower them in some respects.
Asked by Motorsport.com if they had drawn a conclusion as to why Red Bull had the advantage over them in terms of top speed, Carlos Sainz said the analysis was still ongoing.
“It’s one of the things we’re looking into, mainly because we know a lot of our deficit with Red Bull is that one,” Sainz explained.
“We’re looking at resistance levels and all the things we can do to see if we can be stronger on that front.”
“That also shows that we’ve made a good step forward with the engine and all that, but the others are still very competitive. They also have very strong power units and endurance levels, so it’s going to be a tough rivalry.” .
The #55 also said he was skeptical of the conclusion reached by other teams that Ferrari’s engines were clearly the best in Formula 1 in 2022.
“It’s not superior, but it’s a good engine,” Sainz said. “Red Bull had more top speed than us and nobody talks about the Honda engine.”
“It seems that suddenly Ferrari is up, but Red Bull had 5 km/h more. We have to talk about others, not just Ferrari. For our part, at this moment we can be calmer regarding reliability.”
With top speed one of the priorities for the Jeddah circuit, Charles Leclerc, the winning driver of the first race of the season, said that Ferrari knows how important it will be to find an answer to the top speed differences in Bahrain.
“We’re definitely on it. We’re looking at it, obviously, but I think it’s something that can change from track to track.”
“Seeing what [Red Bull] showed on the straights in Bahrain, it could be that they are even stronger on these types of circuits. So we have to keep pushing hard,” Leclerc said.
