In the round-up: Charles Leclerc says Ferrari’s tyre management is the best he has ever known it to be.
In brief
Ferrari’s tyre management better than ever – Leclerc
After climbing from eighth to fourth in the Japanese Grand Prix, Leclerc says Ferrari’s tyre management hasn’t been this good at any time since he joined the team in 2019.
“Since I arrived in Ferrari, we always had the tendency of being very fast in qualifying and struggling a lot with tyre management in the race,” he told Viaplay. “It’s for now the most positive beginning of the year I’ve seen in terms of tyre management and just the car being easier.
“It’s not like we, the drivers, are doing something very different to what we were doing in the past. It’s just a car that is in a better place and manages the tyres better. So that is a good sign and it’s encouraging for the rest of the season.”
Leclerc ran third in the latter stages of the race until he was passed by Carlos Sainz Jnr. He said he couldn’t have kept his team mate behind.
“I honestly don’t think we were expecting to have both cars at the same point,” said Leclerc. “We were on different strategies and Carlos was much faster on fresher tyres. There was no real point for me to be fighting him..”
Formula E cancels support series
Formula E’s planned Nxt Gen Cup support series will not go ahead this year due to “unexpected constraints”, the championship has announced. The first round was due to take place alongside this weekend’s double-header at Misano.The series will put on other entertainments for fans in Italy this weekend. Formula E said it “remains committed to nurturing the next generation of talent through FIA Girls on Track and other impactful initiatives for young people.”
McLaren extends tobacco sponsorship deal
British American Tobacco has renewed its sponsorship of McLaren, which began in 2019. The company, which used F1 to promote its cigarette brands before the European Union’s ban on tobacco advertising came into force in the mid-noughties, now advertises its electronic cigarette and nicotine pouch products on McLaren’s F1 cars and elsewhere. Under the new deal McLaren’s Formula E team will also carry BAT’s logos.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
F2 champion Pourchaire on standby for McLaren at Long Beach (Racer)
'Obviously, whoever that’s going to be is not going to be Callum because he has a conflict. We have Theo as a backup. A Formula 2 champion.'
2024 looks like Hamilton’s Mercedes low point (The Telegraph)
'It was strange to hear him sheepishly almost request that he let his team-mate by at Suzuka. It is not something you hear often from even those drivers in F1 who are lucky to have their seat, let alone drivers of Hamilton’s class.'
18-year-old earns virtual race with Formula 1 champ Verstappen (Sta)
'Jernej Dovzan, a 18-year-old from Trzic, has been declared the best driver of the Player 0.0 campaign as part of the Game Gang Show, a gaming festival organised in Ljubljana last weekend.'
A tactical and technical race (Minardi)
'We are watching a demanding world championship in which the slightest slip is enough to end up in the rear. On a major track such as Suzuka we saw qualifying with eight cars enclosed within seven tenths of a second (between Perez – second – and Leclerc eighth there were barely 532 thousandths of a second) and a very technical and tactical race certainly conditioned by the red flag.'
Oliver Rowland: The FE star behind F3’s latest race-winning debutant (Formula Scout)
'I always say to the kids that come in to my team, if you do something special, you perform well, then I’ll do whatever I can to give you that next leg up the ladder.'
Ratzenberger Docu Series Episode 1: The early years (Levay Film Production via YouTube)
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Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
ROKiT British F4 Certified by FIA 2023 Champion driver, Louis Sharp, capitalised on another one of his prizes during the week as he paid a visit to BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Human Performance Centre. #BritishF4 pic.twitter.com/WD5G9uK5DU
— ROKiT British F4 (@BritishF4) April 8, 2024
Well then.
What a show. @IndyCar @IMS #Eclipse2024 pic.twitter.com/ltawtNMatl
— Dave Furst (@DaveFurst) April 8, 2024
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Comment of the day
Does the budget cap excessively punish teams for crashes?
To me, one area of the budget cap that should definitely be changed is the replacement of non-repairable parts counting toward the cap. There is no way that helps keep costs down let alone helps the field come together.
Another reason this is so ridiculous is that means the Williams drivers are going to have be exceedingly careful for basically the rest of the season.
Nick T
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Mad Eric, Slr, Dirgegirl and Traverse!
Mooa42
9th April 2024, 0:46
RE COTD (As posted in the original article) The replacement of non repairable parts, I think if this was a rule I’d be expecting to see a huge rise in the number of accidents that Alonso had as he “accidentally damaged” parts of his car that could be replaced outside the budget cap.
It would be nigh on impossible for the FIA to know the full engineering in every part and then rule if the replacement was 100% the same as the damaged part. In theory a good idea, but in practice it would be a nightmare to govern.
Todfod (@todfod)
9th April 2024, 4:02
I’m wondering if Ferraris shift of focus from optimising tyres for race pace instead of single lap pace is affecting Leclerc’s performance this season. He strikes me as a driver that likes starting on the front row and then trying to defend that position on race day, as compared to starting slightly back and working himself up. Maybe he just isn’t getting heat in to the tyres on Saturdays like he used to, but Carlos for some reason has found his sweet spot with this years car.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
9th April 2024, 22:05
@todfod I think the tire prep this car, which is more gentle on its tires and therefore slower to heat them up, needs, isn’t yet working for Leclerc. Sainz driving style is quite different so he has a better success rate with tire prep but he also has problems with it. His second Q3 lap in Australia wasn’t great, and his second lap in Suzuka was terrible.
I don’t think Leclerc dislikes coming from behind. I think he actually enjoyed Suzuka more than his boring run to p3 at Jeddah. The problem is the end result. He believes, and not without merit that with his excellent race pace both in Melbourne and Suzuka he would’ve been the top Ferrari driver if he’d started further up. So that’s where his frustration comes from. If he’d been able to maximize the result possible for the car starting where he did he wouldn’t mind that. It would simply mean that focusing purely on the race is what this car needs.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th April 2024, 6:07
While COTD makes a good point about this particular aspect within the budget cap, changing a rule would, unfortunately, be easier said than done in reality.
Furthermore, I don’t think the Williams duo will necessarily have to be very careful throughout the remaining season any more than any other teammate pairing.
RH
9th April 2024, 7:22
This Ferrari is a RB19 clone. RB20 has given up some race trim advantage for better slow speed and quali speed relative to RB19. So Leclercs comments aren’t surprising.
Lorengzte (@lorengzte)
9th April 2024, 20:58
Only difference is it’s not got a sharp front end so the faster driver can’t actually make use of it speed, and the slower driver looks better.
RH
10th April 2024, 5:38
It has a very good front end, Leclerc is just poor at bringing the tires in the right window, he is very reminiscent of Perez last year in the 19. Leclerc is faster when he just throws the car around in a car that gets its tires up to temperatures quickly. Even last year early on he had issues getting used to the Ferraris poor tire management in wet circuits. His disaster class at Spain won’t be forgotten. Only one driver and team have been successful this cycle, others seem to just not be good enough except Alonso who drives a much slower car.
earthling (@34rthl1ng)
9th April 2024, 9:51
Better tyre management surely makes for easier strategic decisions. But anyway, so far Ferrari seems to be nailing the strategy this season. We are not accustomed to this. Maybe “making a Ferrari” will change its meaning after a few more races like these.
Asanator (@asanator)
9th April 2024, 14:11
Should become ‘making a Mercedes’
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
9th April 2024, 16:03
Seems like teams are finding various significant problems with the 2026 regulations now that they have been given the data from the FIA that has allowed them to test them on the simulator.
The active aero seems to make them undrivable on straights and through even the minor kinks to the point where at present they would be slower than F2 & matching F3 cars in terms of laptime.
Additionally it seems like the concerns that Christian Horner raised last year about how the removal of the MGU-H would affect energy regeneration has proven to be a more valid than the FIA expected. Perhaps it won’t be as big of an issue as Christian warned but he wasn’t as completely wrong as the FIA claimed he was.