Article by Alessandro Rastrelli “Rastro”
It was the forty-sixth lap of the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix. Leclerc was first and at one point he signaled the word "ENGINE" on the steering wheel dashboard on a team radio. This was the beginning of an ordeal that led him to retire due to an internal short circuit in an engine injection control unit. That was a reliability problem of an engine with a bit too extreme mapping. To date, Ferrari has learned from its mistakes. The Ferrari in Bahrain used a more conservative engine mapping to avoid a similar scenario to 2019, not only in the race but also in qualifying.
The analysis
Let's start the analysis from Saturday. From the telemetry of Leclerc and Verstappen of Q3 in qualifying it can be seen that Verstappen is faster in the first sector, while in the second and third sector Ferrari manages to beat Red Bull. In the first sector at the end of the two straights, the one before turn 1 and the one before turn 4, Verstappen manages to be faster than Leclerc, while in the slow corners at the apex they have the same speed. The real difference comes in the second sector. In turn 5,6,7 where it was said that "Ferrari went slower in the fast corners than Red Bull", exactly the opposite happened. Ferrari managed to be faster in the changes of direction and in the fast corners in the confrontation between Leclerc and Verstappen, a symptom of a successful car even in mixed races. In the slow corners Ferrari has a huge advantage over all the other teams. Leclerc manages to stop the car earlier at the apex point, and to go slower there, in order to make the car turn faster, steer it like a caliper and accelerate from slow corners better than all the other cars. This Ferrari has a really good engine. The third sector is in favor of the Maranello team, which finds the same advantages that can be seen in the rest of the lap: fast in the fast corners, a low top speed, but a car that is easy to drive and accelerates better than the Red Bull and of the rest of the grid. To recap the splits: t1 in favor of Verstappen, t2 in favor of Leclerc and t3 in favor of Leclerc, thanks to a masterpiece lap pulled off at the last attempt by Leclerc, Ferrari took pole position in Bahrain.
The decisive moment: the race
The true Ferrari masterpiece does it on Sunday. The Red wins with a brace dominating in Bahrain with Leclerc. We recall that the last Ferrari victory and one-two dates back to Singapore 2019 with Vettel on the top step. An authentic masterpiece with a Ferrari that would have given Mercedes more than a minute of gap if there hadn't been the Safety Car (gap between Leclerc and Russell). The men from Maranello also managed to face great difficulties during the race. Leclerc, after making his first pit stop and reacting to Verstappen's undercut, found himself with the ERS battery completely flat. In fact, despite the fact that the battery recharged during the stop, upon returning to the track the battery was discharged more quickly than expected. Precisely for this reason, Leclerc was ordered from the box to switch to a more conservative mapping of the hybrid part, from SOC 6 to SOC 10, especially in the second sector where Verstappen was unable to attack the Monegasque. The battery was not recharging, even though Leclerc was using very conservative mappings that favor recharging at the expense of performance. After a couple of laps with Leclerc arriving on the straight at 280 km/h, while his rival at 324 km/h, fortunately the battery started to charge and Leclerc raced normally without any problems, which instead later hit his opponent Verstappen (problem with the pressure of the front brakes, with the engine brake and with the traction power of the ERS of the hybrid part). Leclerc's solution and Verstappen's problems lead the Monegasque to take his third career victory in F1.
And now? Calm
Now the goal for Leclerc and Ferrari is the drivers' and constructors' titles, but will they be able to be competitive throughout the season? One thing is certain, this first race, as Binotto declared, despite the small problem Leclerc had in the race, both drivers mounted a limited Power Unit, which delivered less horsepower, in order to be sure of their reliability. The Maranello team intends to maximize the power of its engine starting from the next GPs, not from Jeddah, but probably starting from Imola, once enough data has been collected to guarantee performance and reliability for this engine. At a time when it seems there are no rivals for Ferrari, with the exception of Red Bull, it's better to be more conservative with engine mappings than to risk making one or two zeros.
All in Jeddah
Towards the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Monegasque thought well of playing a joke on a radio team by pretending to have engine problems. Obviously everything turned into a final laugh from everyone, with Binotto perhaps being the one who took it least well, understandable, returning from the 2019 experience. In conclusion, we can say that this Ferrari arrives in Jeddah with all cards in hand to win. Performing engine, they "almost" never had any reliability problems, it goes fast in slow and fast corners, so it has to fight for the win. Surely on a track like Jeddah, Ferrari will pay against Red Bull for using a more conservative mapping which could limit top speed and the Ferrari will not be able to exploit its strong point, i.e. acceleration from low speed, given that in Jeddah there are few. On the other hand, Ferrari has the most complete package on the grid and will play for victory with Red Bull and a fierce Verstappen, who is hungry for revenge and to score his first points in the championship.
