Mark Hughes: Ferrari should be nervous about its French GP gamble

Big picture: it’s the usual suspects Ferrari and Red Bull at the front, with Mercedes lagging a distant third.

But within the big picture, there is intrigue, particularly regarding the different ways Ferrari and Red Bull have chosen to balance the conflicting demands of qualifying and race around this track with its fast, long-duration, tyre-chewing corners.

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Red Bull is running significantly less wing here than Ferrari (or Mercedes). This may well be a key factor in its difficulty in getting the front tyres up to temperature for the single lap. With the front wing angled necessary to give a balance with the trimmed rear, the energy is just not being fed into those front tyres as well as in the Ferrari.

This choice gave Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez a lot of difficulty with understeer through Turns 1-4 and, particularly, through the long Turn 11, Le Beausset.

The contrast in lines between the Ferraris and Red Bulls through there was striking, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz confident enough to go in super-late and hard, knowing the front would respond but without upsetting the rear. The early-turning Red Bull drivers looked tentative in comparison.

This only partly explains the near-0.5s advantage Ferrari enjoyed over a single lap. The GPS traces also suggest the Ferrari power unit was turned up for those first flying laps, whereas those on the Red Bulls were not.

But… this is a notoriously tough circuit for the front tyres. The Red Bulls may be taking longer to get them up to temperature, but once there it may well be looking after them better.

Certainly, Leclerc’s long run showed very significant degradation. It’s difficult to be definitive about this as Leclerc ran a nine-lap stint simulation whereas Verstappen (and the Mercedes drivers) ran only four laps. Hence Verstappen’s 0.9s advantage is not representative. But it will be making Ferrari very nervous about whether it has pitched the balance between qualifying and race stint simulation correctly – especially as this is one of the easiest circuits on the calendar for overtaking.

FP2 long runs

In Austria of course it was the Red Bull that over-worked its tyres and the Ferrari which remained balanced. But that was on a rear-limited track. Front-limited tracks like this have tended to expose the Ferrari’s trait of overworking its fronts.

Verstappen’s conversation with his race engineer underlined the tricky balance to be struck between Saturday and Sunday performance here:
“We’re not going to try for another lap?” questioned Verstappen after setting the third-fastest time.

“It’s just time at high fuel Max. Your first lap was competitive. Second push laps for both Ferraris have gone quicker by five or six tenths. But your first lap relative to theirs was competitive…. The race is won on Sunday and I think the high fuel run is important. But it’s up to you mate.”

“Yeah but I don’t want to start P3 or P4.”

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So that’s how it’s poised between the big two.

Mercedes lacks the Red Bull’s straightline speed and is being out-cornered by the Ferrari and so is clearly still only the third-fastest car. But it is traditionally good on the tyres.

“Our high fuel pace is better than our low fuel pace,” confirmed George Russell, “so we need to optimise tomorrow to make sure there’s no midfield cars between us and the front four and then see how we get on for Sunday. I think the Ferraris will probably struggle a bit more than us with the tyres. Max looks very fast as usual, so work to do.”