Red Bull Plays Chess, Ferrari Plays Checkers - Hungary 2022
Source: Ferrari
After the trials and tribulations of the French Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari needed nothing short of perfection if they had any hope of keeping their title hopes alive going into the summer break. Thankfully for Ferrari, the characteristics of the Hungaroring with its lack of straights and dependence on lateral stability suited the design philosophy of the car nicely. Friday running was a confirmation of this, with both Leclerc and Sainz leading the field when it came to both short and long-run pace. However, things changed as the temperatures dropped and rain came in - resulting in a vastly different track dynamic compared to Friday. This was affirmed when Ferrari missed their chance at a front-row lockout, with George Russell clinching his first career pole position. Ferrari had miscalculated in their failure to adjust to the changing conditions - a foreshadowing of what was to come for the race. Let’s get straight into it!
Jumping at Shadows
Chart 1: Tyre Strategy Summary
It’s only right that a deep dive into strategy begins with a high-level look at how the race strategy unfolded. Chart 1 provides a summary of the different strategies employed by each driver on the grid as well as some recommendations coming from Pirelli themselves. Honing in on Ferrari and their competitors showcases a key detail - Leclerc was the only driver to make use of the hard tyre. Another notable observation is that outside of Hamilton, Leclerc and Sainz were the only others from the top 3 teams to start the race on the medium tyre and opt to use the tyre again for the second stint. These two details would be what left Ferrari’s hopes in ruin.
Chart 2: Race Story - Cumulative Delta Plot
It was a good start from both Sainz and Leclerc, though neither driver was able to get the legs on Russell thanks to the Briton starting the race on the soft tyre. Be that as it may, Ferrari’s main threat of Max Verstappen was still down the order playing damage limitation after an unlucky power unit issue compromised his qualifying performance. Russell continued his strong early performance by maintaining the lead of the race despite the performance fade from his soft tyres as shown in Chart 2 above. During this time, Leclerc was also reeling in his teammate and Ferrari was fast approaching their first dilemma - how to manage the race between their two drivers.
Given Sainz’s difficulty in overtaking Russell, Ferrari considered going for the undercut - or at least signalling that they were going for the undercut. It so happened that Russell opted to come into the pits at this time, with Sainz staying out on track in a bid to “do the opposite of their competition”. Why compromise your own plans to pit (assuming it wasn’t pure bait)? Because unless Ferrari had a remarkably faster pitstop compared to Mercedes, it was unlikely that Sainz would gain many advantages by pitting at the exact same time as Russell. Staying out gives the opportunity to try and fight Mercedes’ own undercut attempt. All of which is helped by the fact that Sainz was on the more robust medium tyre, which should have given him more longevity in the stint.
But this wasn’t necessarily true, with Sainz’s pace not improving much despite riding in the clear air following Russell’s pitstop. This pointed to the realisation that Sainz’s pace on the medium tyre was neither competitive enough nor durable enough to make large inroads in the race in terms of strategy. Sainz pitted on the following lap and switched to another set of medium tyres, while also unleashing Leclerc to run his own race. The upshot of this was a relatively clean resolution to the driver management issue. The downdraft of this was that Ferrari had committed to an aggressive alternate strategy by opting for a repeat run on the medium tyre - rather than pitting for a different compound. this is a significant detail because it can leave a driver exposed to another team throwing the strategic gauntlet at an inopportune time.
Chart 3: Pit Stop Gain and Loss
Despite pushing on with the older medium tyres, Leclerc continued to have strong pace for the first stint as shown in Chart 2. This only improved for Leclerc, following his first pitstop and resumption of the race on the medium tyre. Leclerc’s stop also meant he was successful in overcutting his teammate Sainz. Part of this was down to Sainz having a slower stationary pit stop and part of it is down to Leclerc having the pace advantage despite Sainz being on the fresher tyres - as shown in Chart 3 above. Nevertheless, this helped put to bed the driver management problem for this race and allowed Ferrari to regain focus on reigning in Russell.
Chart 4: Trend Race Pace Compared - Leclerc vs Sainz vs Russell vs Verstappen
With Russell no longer having the soft tyre compound advantage, the pace differential was in Leclerc’s favour as shown in Chart 4 above. Leclerc’s pace was head and shoulders above Russell and as such was able to close the gap to the Briton swiftly - as shown in Chart 2 earlier. But Russell does well to keep Leclerc at bay, thanks largely due to the track characteristics of the Hungaroring that make overtaking a difficult endeavour. But Leclerc’s overtake on Russell was more a case of “when” rather than “if'“, with the Monegasque driver making a brilliant overtaking manoeuvre going into Turn 1 on lap 30. From here, Leclerc was truly unleashed as he started to build a gap to both Rusell and Verstappen who was also making his way through the field. And while Sainz was struggling to make inroads on Russell, Leclerc was comfortably the fastest man amongst the front runners. It was all looking to go Ferrari’s way until the Red Bull opted to pit Verstappen for the 2nd time at the end of lap 38.
Ferrari opts to respond to Red Bull’s decision, despite being in the lead, only 18 laps into the second stint on the medium tyre and not being immediately threatened. Worse still, the decision to pit Leclerc was while he was putting in some of the fastest laps of anyone in the field. Leclerc’s second stint on the medium tyre was the second shortest stint of anyone in the field for the entirety of the race - as shown in Chart 1 earlier. All of this so they could put Leclerc on the hard tyre and fend off the threat from a fast-moving Verstappen, who was still 3 places back. The calamity of this mistake can be clearly seen in Chart 4 - due to the massive pace differential between Leclerc and Verstappen on the third stint. But the truly confounding part in all of this is how Ferrari arrived at this decision, despite having ample information on the race performance of the hard tyre.
Chart 5: Best Laps Per Tyre Compared
Chart 5 takes a look at the best laps performed on each compound for the duration of the race. This is meant to give a glimpse at the potential pace that is achievable on any tyre at any given time. A caveat to this is that there is a mix of drivers and cars contributing to the data series, and as such, this analysis glosses over maintaining consistency in the car’s performance, as well as the significance of sequencing between laps (i.e. some fast laps tend to be followed by slow laps which are masked in this dataset). But these caveats can instead be helpful in identifying the best potential race pace on the tyre (since it partially ignores issues with wear).
Nevertheless, this dataset is still informative in drawing some high-level conclusions. It is clear to see that the hard tyre had a massive performance gap compared to the soft and medium. While this may be exaggerated for the early part of the race - due to the dataset being dominated by slower teams on the hard tyre, the quality of the data improves as you get further into the race. The persistence of the poor performance gives an indication of the difficulty in getting the tyres in the right operating window. This is also contrasted against the opposite observation with the soft and medium tyres.
These are crucial details as the Ferrari pit wall would have been seeing this information in real-time. And while it is fair to assume that Ferrari would have better performance on the hard tyre compared to the likes of Alpine, it doesn’t reconcile with the fact that the hard tyre pace would still be much worse than the performance that Leclerc was already showcasing on the medium tyre not long before. It’s also worth noting that the cooler conditions on Sunday should have been another validating data point for why getting the hard tyre in the optimal window would be a difficult task.
This begs the question: why not take another tyre?
Chart 6: Tyre Degradation Profile
Since Leclerc had already done two stints on the medium tyre, the only other option he had was to switch to the soft tyre. But this was not feasible, as Chart 6 shows the soft tyre had an unfavourable degradation profile over the course of longer stints. Its advantage over the medium tyre would only last for 10 laps or so, before the outcomes would become more volatile and unpredictable. Chart 6 also makes an attempt at correcting for the impact of fuel burn (using a linear interpolation of 0.3s seconds per lap per 10kg of fuel depleted) to compensate for the “lighter car” effect observed towards the later stages of the race. This meant that if Ferrari wanted to respond to Verstappen’s threat at that time, the hard tyre was the only option available to them.
This then begs the question: why even respond to the Verstappen threat?
Given Leclerc’s tremendous pace in the middle of the race, the decision made little sense. There was a clear alternative for Leclerc to ignore the threat and carry on building an offset to Verstappen for an advantage later on in the race. This would have also helped Ferrari get deeper into the race and bring the soft tyre into the strategy mix. Perhaps there was a fear that Ferrari didn’t think they could stretch the stint far enough, or that they would simply lose too much time to Verstappen, or that making the overtaking move would be too difficult around a track like Hungary? The answers to many of these questions will never be known with exact certainty. But one thing is clear, the switch to the hard tyre all but destroyed Leclerc’s race as shown not only in Chart 4 but in Chart 2 as well. In fact, Ferrari’s own decision to pit a third time might be all the confirmation that is needed to acknowledge the blunder that put Leclerc in a position with nowhere to go - despite having race-winning pace.
To make matters worse, Leclerc’s misfortunes were shared by Sainz as well. Even though the Spaniard received the benefit of the soft tyre, there was little that he could do with the number of laps that were remaining in the race. Sainz was caught between a rock in a hard place and had to fight the degradation profile that was shown in Chart 6. This forewarning would play out and is seen in the results of Chart 4, which highlight Sainz’s struggles in the final stint. This is despite extending with Sainz - something they didn’t do with Leclerc. However, the pace differential between Leclerc and Sainz was night and day. This is despite the discovery of a plastic bag blocking a radiator which would have a greater impact on cooling rather than pace - a misnomer given the cool conditions of the day. As was the case with Monaco and Silverstone, there was a mismatch in which driver received which strategy.
In the end, on a weekend where Ferrari needed the perfect outcome, they walked away with anything but. Full credit to Red Bull and Verstappen for showcasing a perfect union between effective strategy and solid driving - even after a spin.
Watchpoints for the Next Grand Prix
It’s time for the mid-season break. Verstappen is now 80 points clear of Leclerc with only 9 races left in the season. The championship campaign is in dire straights, especially having opened an even wider points gap at a weekend where Ferrari should have been firmly closing it. While it is unlikely that the mid-season break will provide Ferrari with the reversal of fortunes needed to get back in contention, anything is still possible - mathematically speaking that is. Mercedes continue to be on the up and could well and truly cause a few headaches for the front two teams in the later part of the season. The fight between McLaren and Alpine continues to ramp up, especially with the recent shake-up in the driver market. But for now, it’s time for a break before we go racing once more. Here’s to hoping this is the last of my autopsies on Ferrari’s strategic blunders. I’ll see you at the next one.
