Ferrari team principal clueless as to why they struggled in Miami

The Ferrari F1-75 has higher downforce and drag, allowing it to thrive in low/medium speed curves, under acceleration, and in traction zones.

Mattia Binotto in a file photo, Image credit: Twitter
By Niranjan Shivalkar | May 14, 2022 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

The attributes and setup of the Ferrari and Red Bull vehicles have been considerably different during the campaign’s first phase. The Ferrari F1-75 has higher downforce and drag, allowing it to thrive in low/medium speed curves, under acceleration, and in traction zones. Red Bull developed a reduced downforce arrangement for its RB18, giving it an edge at high speeds and in flat-out curves. The Ferrari F1-75 was unable to keep up with what Red Bull was accomplishing. As a result of which Ferrari team principal is finding answers to what went wrong and how can that be fixed in the future races.

Red Bull was quicker in the slower corners

Last weekend in Miami, Ferrari was unable to keep up with what Red Bull was accomplishing. The difference between the two automobiles was not as obvious. Ferrari confessed that they were perplexed as to why things swung around in Miami, especially given Red Bull’s ability to maintain its straight line speed advantage. Team principal Mattia Binotto said: “We are running a bit more downforce in terms of wing configurations: lacking speed on the straights but normally gaining a bit more on the corners. I think in Miami it has been the case of being faster in the corners 5/6/7, but maybe it has not been the case in the very slow ones after 11/12/13.”

Binotto added “I think Red Bull has been very good in that respect. They are very good on the medium tyres, to be as fast as us at least in the very slow speed corners. And the reason why, it’s something that we need to assess and understand. I believe it’s in the fact that they have got upgrades in the last races that have made their car simply faster.”

Better tyre management by Red Bull

The Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc believes there was also a definite performance advantage for Red Bull when cars were on the softer tyres, particularly over a race distance. He said that on the medium and soft tyre Red Bull seem to be a bit stronger and managing those tyres better. He added that they did a decent job in terms of managing those tyres in the qualifying but struggled in the long runs. “Especially on the softer compounds, on the medium and soft, it seems that it’s been already two races that in terms of race pace, they seem to be a bit stronger and managing those tyres better.” expressed Leclerc.

“In qualifying, we always managed to put those tires in the right window, which helps us. But on the long runs, we struggle a bit more compared to them.” said the world championship leader.

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Small things made the difference

Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, was of the opinion that, in the end, there is so little separating his team’s performance from Ferrari’s that minor things matter more. He felt that they were very closely matched. Ferrari had a very high downforce while Red Bull were very low downforce, and the set-up worked for them. It was just trying to piece together the best race that one can, and strategically, Red Bull was very different to Ferrari here.