The Scuderia closes the gap on McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship race but in Nevada the result could have been better: here’s why
The results obtained in Las Vegas by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, third and fourth at the finish line respectively, allowed Ferrari to recover 12 points on McLaren in the constructors’ championship. The Woking team now has a 24 point lead over the Scuderia with two Grands Prix still to compete (one of which in Sprint format). A good haul, therefore, that obtained by Cavallino, even if many expected something more. The reds were considered favorites on the eve of the GP held in Nevada. Already in Friday’s free practice, however, the Mercedes had surprised everyone with their performances, while the SF-24s of Leclerc and Sainz had encountered a few more difficulties than expected, especially with regards to the fastest lap. The race pace seemed to smile on the reds, but this trend was not confirmed during the GP, at least in the very early stages. In fact, it was in the first stint of the race, run on medium tyre, that the Ferrari drivers lost a lot of ground against the Mercedes, compromising their chances of victory. The second and third stints, faced with a hard compound, were instead more positive for Ferrari. Let’s now analyze the different phases of the race in detail.
the first stint
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When the lights went out Leclerc was the most reactive, which allowed him to take second position, overtaking Pierre Gasly and teammate Carlos Sainz in one fell swoop. Perhaps it is also because of this great start that the Monegasque was tempted, deciding to attack George Russell, leading the race, in the first laps. Leclerc tried to sneak past the Mercedes standard-bearer with an outside maneuver into Turn 1 at the start of the fifth lap, without success. In this phase of the attack, however, the Monegasque did not pay particular attention to the management of his medium tyres, wearing them out and thus collapsing in performance after a few laps. The sixth lap was emblematic, closed by Leclerc in 1’39″177 against Russell’s 1’38″136 and Sainz’s 1’38″394. A scenario that was repeated on the eighth lap, in which Sainz overtook Leclerc, with the Monegasque finally being called back to the pits on lap nine, however, despite Leclerc’s initial failure, it is clear from the times that Mercedes was the only one car capable of handling the medium tire we can take the times of the ninth lap as an example: Sainz with his 1’39″584 was slower than Russell by more than a second (1’38″353) and slower than almost half a second compared to Lewis Hamilton (1’39″095), despite the latter being eighth and in traffic. A situation that led Ferrari to also stop Sainz on the tenth lap, when Russell’s advantage over the Spaniard was already 7 seconds. In general, both the Ferraris, the McLarens and Verstappen had to stop in the very first laps due to the collapse of the medium tyre, which allowed the Mercedes to be able to make the pit stops themselves and to do so without pressure, given the great advantage gained in the first stint.
the second and third stints
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In the second and third stints of the race, both run on hard rubber by Sainz and Leclerc, the distance in terms of performance compared to Mercedes was closer. With the more resistant compound, the SF-24 returned to the competitive pace seen for almost the entire second part of the season, allowing Sainz and Leclerc to partially reconstruct their race. In the second stint, which began on the ninth lap for Leclerc and on the tenth for Sainz, the two Ferrari drivers managed to stabilize their pace, after the shock of the first laps on medium tyres. In the third and final stint, which began on the 28th lap for Sainz and on the 31st for Leclerc (Sainz’s choice to overtake Leclerc upon returning to the track provoked a harsh reaction from the Monegasque after the race), the Ferraris finally fully found themselves, resulting the fastest on the track, together with Hamilton, almost at every lap. The pace of the reds was enough to catch up and overtake Verstappen, who didn’t make life too difficult for the Maranello cars, but not to catch up with the Mercedes, who maintained a good pace until the checkered flag. The race, therefore, was decided in the first laps, in which the silver arrows gained a sufficient advantage to manage the rest of the GP. Ferrari, like the other teams, probably did not expect such a vertical collapse of the average compound, which was effectively managed well only by Mercedes. The main objective, that of recovering points from McLaren, was however achieved by the Cavallino. Given the expectations of the day before, however, Fred Vasseur and his men presumably expected to arrive in Qatar even closer to the Woking team. After the conquest of the fourth consecutive title by Max Verstappen, the attention of all fans is now turned to the challenge for the Constructors’ World Championship between Ferrari and McLaren. A battle that could continue until the final corners of the World Championship. Next stop: Losail.
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