Why Ferrari’s the only team slower at Monza than in 2019

Ferrari was the only Formula 1 team to lap slower in Friday practice for the Italian Grand Prix than it did last year as its straightline speed issue was compounded by handling problems.

Charles Leclerc scored pole and victory at Monza one year ago but this season Ferrari arrives for its home grand prix in poor form, and was badly exposed last weekend at the power-sensitive Spa circuit.

That left the team lacking confidence given the high-speed demands of Monza, but it looks comparatively more competitive with all teams adopting low-downforce packages instead of a split of compromises that the Belgian Grand Prix always produces.

On headline lap times, Ferrari was back into the top 10 with Charles Leclerc in ninth place in FP2, 1.3s slower than the 1.3s slower than the pacesetting Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.

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It was also faster than its customer teams, which was not conclusively the case at Spa.

While the one-lap pace seemed better than Ferrari had anticipated – “We, I think, expected a bit worse on the low fuel,” said Leclerc – its decline compared to 2019 is unavoidable, especially in the context of other teams’ improvements.

Ferrari is the only team to lap slower than it did in FP2 in 2019. Leclerc’s time was 0.525s slower than his FP2 benchmark from 2019, with the next-worst compared to the previous year the Ferrari-powered Haas team (which only improved by 0.065s) and Honda-powered Red Bull (0.122s faster).

But there were massive gains for other teams, with McLaren the biggest year-on-year improver (1.393s) and Racing Point (Mercedes engine, 1.317s) and AlphaTauri (Honda, 1.003s) also more than a second faster than a year ago.

Monza FP2 year-on-year comparison

Renault would also be in that bracket had Daniel Ricciardo’s best lap on Friday not been deleted for a track limits infringement, while Haas would have been a few tenths faster if Romain Grosjean didn’t suffer the same fate.

Fuel loads and engine modes will likely influence this picture, and Ferrari’s poor year-on-year comparison is hardly a surprise given its self-confessed loss of engine power in 2020.

But it reiterates the Scuderia’s troubles extend beyond its lack of engine power, given the gap to its customer teams have shrunk – Alfa 0.28s slower compared to 1.55s a year ago, and Haas 0.58s slower compared to 1.2s.

“We’re losing down the straights which is expected,” said Vettel. “But where we want to have a better car to drive is we’re lacking grip on corner entry, pretty much all four wheels the car is sliding quite a lot and it’s a handful.”

Vettel suffered a spin during FP2 at the first Lesmo corner, while Leclerc went off-track at the same place, as both drivers complained of a difficult to drive car.

This was the part of FP2 that was below expectations, as Leclerc said that at high-fuel “we definitely need to try to find something for the race otherwise it’s going to be very, very difficult”.

Vettel suggested Pirelli’s mandated higher tyre pressures were not helping the SF1000 either.

“I think part of a contributor is the balloon pressures we’re forced to run at,” he said.

“It’s far away from where I think the tyres would like to run but we have to stick to the rules.

“Apart from that it’ll be a tricky one in the race, we’ll be fighting a lot of cars, we will be in a pack, it’s not like racing in front in clean air and having a nice car.

“But that’s something to worry about on Sunday. Now we worry for tomorrow and hopefully get a better car, because the better the car it will help us on Sunday.”

Meanwhile, Red Bull’s modest year-on-year gain left it slower than McLaren and its own junior team AlphaTauri in FP2, on a day Max Verstappen crashed at the Ascari chicane and he and team-mate Alex Albon racked up multiple Parabolica track limits offences.

“Both drivers aren’t particularly happy with their balance at the moment,” said team boss Christian Horner on Friday evening.

“So there’s a bit of bit of time on the table that we’ve got to find.”

Unlike Ferrari, which is further down the times at every race in 2020, Horner believes Red Bull is only mildly out of position at Monza on Friday because of its on-the-day performance.

“I think that we were sufficiently out of shape on our side that the gap to the rest of the field is about where you would expect, it’s just that we’re not in our usual position,” said Horner.

“The car definitely is tricky at the moment. It’s not often that it gets away from Max.

“But thankfully the damage was relatively light.”