Ferrari is focusing on the efficiency within the qualifying classes so as to have the ability to enhance its general outcomes. On the finish of the Jeddah race weekend, Ferrari crew principal Frederic Vasseur noticed that the crew wanted to deal with bettering its personal efficiency as a way to begin additional forward on the grid. He defined that when this objective is achieved, the race modifications totally, with the potential to realize six or seven seconds within the first 5 or 6 laps as an alternative of dropping time. The efficiency hole between Saturday and Sunday stems from the aerodynamic idea of the SF-25, however that doesn’t imply there is no such thing as a room for enchancment. The work on qualifying largely entails tyre preparation, drawing on the experience of the brand new technical director Loic Serra.
Good race tempo
On the 6.174-kilometre Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the Ferrari Workforce Principal acknowledged that for 35 laps, Charles Leclerc was quicker than Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. Nonetheless, it was an uneven comparability, because the Ferrari driver had tyres 10 laps more energizing than the main duo within the closing 20 laps. Nonetheless, it’s telling that when he discovered clear air after George Russell’s pit cease, the Monegasque driver lowered his lap instances within the first stint, even being two tenths quicker than Max Verstappen’s instances on the finish of his stint. An identical dynamic was noticed within the comparability with Mercedes every week earlier on the Bahrain Worldwide Circuit, on a observe and floor which are the exact opposite of the Saudi Arabian one.
The general image exhibits a really aggressive Ferrari when it comes to race situations, unable, nevertheless, to precise its tempo whereas caught in soiled air. Therefore Frederic Vasseur’s push to focus efforts on Saturday efficiency: the French supervisor acknowledged that they’d struggled extra in qualifying and wanted to focus on that facet. He identified that ranging from fourth place meant being in soiled air, which led to dropping a few seconds within the first 5 or 6 laps and likewise emphasised the significance of being extra constant all through your entire weekend.
The similarities between the SF-25, the sleek asphalt and the quick corners of Jeddah highlighted one other of Ferrari’s limitations. In qualifying, Charles Leclerc was on pole place tempo for practically your entire lap, dropping all three and a half tenths in simply the primary two corners. Within the race, as soon as he discovered himself in clear air in the course of the first stint, the Monegasque matched Max Verstappen’s instances within the first sector simply earlier than the cease. This transformation of scene exhibits how the qualifying hole largely stemmed from tyre preparation, whose significance was additionally highlighted by the four-time System 1 world champion. In his closing Q3 lap, the Dutchman improved his first sector by three tenths in comparison with the earlier try, benefiting from Yuki Tsunoda’s slipstream and observe evolution, but additionally from higher tyre readiness in flip 1 after complaining about it simply minutes earlier.
It’s honest to surprise why Ferrari doesn’t attempt to velocity up the preparation lap to heat the tyres higher. Nonetheless, it’s not only a matter of heating them up, however a broader subject associated to compound exploitation. On the identical observe, for instance, in 2024, Charles Leclerc tried the double prep lap method, however was nonetheless quicker with a single warm-up lap, though the tyre was not but in its optimum window. Ferrari’s downside shouldn’t be heating the tyres, however extracting grip from the compound. The problem isn’t just to convey the tyre in shortly, however to stabilize it as properly, with out overheating it over the remainder of the lap.
The artwork of tyre preparation
The Maranello engineers and technicians are subsequently working to enhance what has steadily turn into a real artwork. As Simone Berra, Pirelli’s Chief Engineer, defined the earlier yr, tyre preparation entails a compromise between retaining the rear steady and guaranteeing the entrance is straight away prepared for the primary sector. The Italian engineer famous that balancing each axles is considerably more difficult in excessive ambient temperatures, whereas it turns into simpler in cooler situations and on circuits with many high-speed corners that help in warming up the tyres.
In Jeddah, the abundance of quick corners helped with tyre preparation, subjecting the tyres to largely lateral hundreds extra evenly distributed throughout the 4 wheels in comparison with the stress of braking or traction, which think about one of many two axles. Nonetheless, complicating every little thing had been the 37 levels celsius on observe in Q3, and particularly the mix of a really gentle compound with significantly easy observe floor, a mixture that shrinks the tyre’s grip peak into a particularly slender working window. All this made it very simple to overheat the tyre by the top of the lap, requiring a cautious method within the first few meters. Ferrari had a better time within the race, exactly as a result of the used tyre, as soon as stabilized, may function throughout a wider temperature vary.
To enhance, Ferrari is counting on the experience of technical director Loic Serra, a tyre specialist. Throughout the presentation of the SF-25 single-seater, the Frenchman defined that tyre administration is carefully linked not solely to the automobile itself but additionally to the way in which the human factor interacts with it, describing it as an interesting mix of each areas. In Maranello, suspension setups can be studied to assist the tyre work higher over a single lap, however, as Adrian Newey reminds us, the setup is commonly complementary to the traits of the automobile’s idea.
Additional room for enchancment lies within the driving in the course of the warm-up lap, a way to be refined along with the drivers. To succeed, a greater understanding of the brand new 2025 Pirelli tire can be crucial, with which groups are nonetheless taking their first steps. The Jeddah weekend marked solely the second outing of the C5 compound this season, which can return in Miami, the place Ferrari hopes to see some progress. Loic Serra had already cautioned again in February that tyre work is a steady, unending course of, whether or not it entails long-distance administration or extracting larger efficiency over a single lap. The Ferrari technical director famous that they continue learning, and the extra information they achieve, the extra they’ll apply it to automobile design, setup choices, and even changes to the driving force’s type.
Qualifying struggles usually are not only a tyre subject, because the SF-25 inherits from the 2024 automobile an aerodynamic idea geared toward race efficiency. It’s a consequence of the intense sensitivity of floor impact vehicles to journey top, a side that forces groups to decide on the optimum floor clearance for the ground. As Jock Clear, Ferrari’s Senior Efficiency Engineer, defined again in September, every crew has its personal method to optimizing the automobile’s efficiency. The British engineer famous that for this reason the hierarchy among the many vehicles tends to shift barely when shifting from qualifying to the race.
Engineers usually repeat that the way in which the automobile strikes in relation to the bottom modifications utterly between qualifying and race, each attributable to gas load and, above all, attributable to velocity. In a nook taken at 200 kilometers per hour in qualifying, going simply 10 kilometers per hour slower within the race can scale back downforce by 100 kilograms, which is the equal of a full gas tank. Jock Clear noticed that in some corners, a automobile’s competitiveness could differ relying on the quantity of gas onboard and whether or not it’s throughout qualifying or the race.
Subsequently, efficiency over a single lap additionally is determined by the working level chosen for the SF-25 single-seater. The Ferrari technicians have room to regulate the setup, persevering with to work on the trade-off between journey top and suspension stiffness to attempt to extract extra efficiency from the ground in qualifying, so long as this doesn’t compromise tyre put on within the race. On paper, additional optimization can be attainable via aerodynamic updates. This, nevertheless, will depend upon how lengthy Ferrari considers it worthwhile to proceed creating the present mission earlier than shifting all sources to the 2026 System 1 automobile.
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