jambuka wrote: ↑20 Mar 2023, 23:23
Vanja #66 wrote: ↑20 Mar 2023, 23:11
LM10 wrote: ↑20 Mar 2023, 22:45
This question can be asked under almost every post of the last couple of days in this thread. Armchair experts are sure of the concept being a failure because of some wild reasoning such as the one from Alonsismo.
The main concept "failure" for Ferrari and every other team is not running the car low enough, like RB. Ferrari was running the car very low in Bahrain, but this caused other balance issues. I suspect they overcorrected for Jeddah, now lacking downforce in corners despite bigger rear wing.
Hard tyre issue could point to an overcorrection of too much tyre heat-up, leading to insufficient heat-up like Hungary 2022. They clearly didn't expect that, so (along with very poor strategy decisions) all's not well in race operations dept.
They have not been able to dial into the suspension introduced correctly yet. Charles was the only car bouncing in FP1, FP2 on the straights. I am assuming they raised the height to eliminate it. At this point they should focus more on race pace setup and forget about qualifying(except tracks where impossible to overtake).
Excellent observation on your part and from Vanja.
I too could not figure how Ferrari went from arguably second fastest in Bahrain, certainly well clear of mercedes, to being unable to trouble Mercedes in Jeddah.
The simple explanation is probably ride height.
Do I think Ferrari have the fastest car right now? No. Did the car show much more performance in Bahrain? Yes. Could they show up in Australia and be in front of Mercedes, and battling AMR (in Leclerc's hands), there's every opportunity.
It's tempting to over-react to the result in Jeddah, (with regards to Mercedes and AMR) but I'm not sure much changed. They are essentially fighting within a track specific +-3 tenths with those other cars.
With respect to RB is a different matter and they will need upgrades to make a dent in that gap.