The rare Ferrari problem that made its Saudi GP harder against Red Bull's might

“If I look back at the last six, seven months, we are the team that have improved the most,” Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said after finishing third behind dominant winner Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez in Formula 1’s 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

“We are slowly closing the gap. The gap is still quite big. But if we keep working like that, I'm sure it's a matter of time before we put Red Bull under a bit more pressure.”

After a second dull race in a week to kick off the new campaign, F1 really needs Ferrari to reach that point fast. As it was, Leclerc ended up 18.6 seconds behind Verstappen in the Dutchman’s 56th F1 win, his 100th podium appearance, and the first time he’s ever started off a season with two successive victories. Not that those comparatively ‘bad’ starts in 2021, 2022 or 2023 did Verstappen much harm…

But, taking a closer look at Leclerc’s Jeddah race and Ferrari’s weekend overall – focusing just on its remaining regular star and leaving Oliver Bearman’s excellent performance to stand rightfully solo in the absent Carlos Sainz’s SF-24 – reveals something intriguing.

It didn’t happen at the start of last Saturday’s contest on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. There, polesitter Verstappen and Leclerc launched pretty much in underwhelming unison from the front row. It was a getaway Verstappen called “not very good, but good enough”.

But from third, Perez shot forwards fast in the other RB20, as Verstappen swung the leading one across Leclerc and snipped off any chance of an attack the Ferrari driver wasn’t able to make anyway. When they slammed on the anchors for the Turns 1-2 left-right complex, Perez was actually in second.

He moved over on Leclerc but “gave him the space into Turn 2”, which allowed a close fight to play out as the opening stagger unwound. Leclerc kept alongside Perez through the Turn 3 kink, then down the short straight to the near-90-degree Turn 4 left. Here Leclerc was in position to get back ahead and duly did.

Verstappen crossed the line with a lead of 1.2s at the end of the first tour of 50, critically depriving Leclerc of DRS that was again active on the second lap, as per the updated rules for 2024. That second tour Leclerc shaved Verstappen’s advantage, but the third time around any faint hope of a contest was utterly dashed.

Perez inched ahead of Leclerc at the start only for the Ferrari driver to fight back - but not for long

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Not only did the leader boost his gap by a statement gain of 0.5s, but Perez was now all over Leclerc’s tail – having been within DRS detection range from the off. At the start of lap four, Perez used DRS to force his way to Turn 1’s inside line and, as he seized second there, Red Bull’s full grip on the event was established.

“There wasn't much I could do,” Leclerc later put it.

Once he had his team-mate following, Verstappen’s lead sat at 2.3s. He increased this to 2.6s by the start of lap seven, which is when arguably the most interesting moment of this race occurred.

Behind on lap six, Lance Stroll joined Logan Sargeant in whacking the wall inside Turn 22 – the fearsome fast left that concludes the second of Jeddahs’ three main fast blasts, which feeds immediately into the shallow Turn 23 right and its chunky kerb.

Unlike the Williams driver in FP3, and himself from FP1, Stroll never made it that far, as his wall-strike snapped his AMR24’s steering and he was sent straight on into the barriers in Turn 23’s run-off.

"It was actually my mistake. Because I was told by the team to hold it back. I looked on the right and there was nobody there" Sergio Perez

The safety car was therefore called into action as the Canadian climbed clear, after there had been some chippiness to direct at his engineer for Ben Michell asking “can you bring it back, Lance?”.

When the race neutralisation happened, the leaders were at the banked Turn 13 hairpin, which meant they all piled into the pits the next time by.

That meant “the last stint was a bit longer than we would have liked, but with the safety car, you had to go for it,” per Verstappen. He was referring to the 11s gain to be had for stopping under caution speeds, which combined with this track having very little in the way of tyre degradation for the harder compounds.

This was why the leaders had started on the mediums and would have gone onto the hards at a sole pitstop even without a stoppage. Even with 43 tours left to run, they knew they could make it to the end from here.

Stroll's crash forced the majority of drivers to stop under the safety car

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Verstappen had pulled enough of a gap to allow Red Bull to double-stack, with the world champion turned around in 2.4s. Perez led Leclerc in, with each having something of a disaster at this stage that ultimately came to nought.

Leclerc’s was that he ended up with the slowest stop of the trio, despite having a clear run to the Ferrari pitbox. He had to be held for 5.3s as Oscar Piastri, Perez and Fernando Alonso flashed down the pitlane towards their own services for the white-walled rubber.

Perez, meanwhile, headed out of his pitbox with its traffic light warning system still showing red and its controller rather in the way as Alonso bore down. The Spaniard duly hit the Aston’s brakes and Perez would soon be slapped with a five-second time addition penalty.

“It was actually my mistake,” Perez later said of this. “Because I was told by the team to hold it back. I looked on the right and there was nobody there. But in hindsight, I think the penalty was correct. Sometimes the team can be a little bit slower than you in the car. But this time it was the other way around.”

Perez still led Leclerc out of the pitlane, but they weren’t behind Verstappen in the safety car snake.

Unwilling to try double-stacks that would have meant sacrificing track position and with a chance of another safety car at this brutal track, McLaren and Mercedes had left Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton out on their medium tyres.

Norris therefore cycled through to head Verstappen, with Hamilton behind his bitter 2021 title rival and leading the neutralised Perez/Leclerc scrap.

This was therefore the order when the race got going again at the start of lap 10 – Norris leaving it until he reached the pitlane entry point on the long main straight before powering back up to speed.

He was able to stay out of Verstappen’s clutches, while in the pack behind Hamilton and Perez had a little dice on the approach to Turn 1. Leclerc, meanwhile, had to defend from the surging Piastri in such a way that he effectively sent a repass up the left-hander’s inside line to stay ahead of the McLaren.

Having not stopped under the safety car, Norris claimed the led, but not for long

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Norris then led rather comfortably for the first three tours back at racing speed because for the Red Bulls, “it took a few laps to warm up [the] hard tyres”, according to Verstappen.

He added: “I also didn't want to take too many risks as well because when you don't have a lot of grip, it's easy to make a mistake around here. At one point, once the tyres had a bit of grip, I could catch [Norris] and pass him. Pretty straightforward.”

That very familiar scene of the Red Bull shooting by with a huge DRS-boosted top-speed advantage over a no-defence-offering McLaren occurred at the start of lap 13. Verstappen was able to be ahead at the offset startline on the approach to Turn 1, but behind Perez had to do Hamilton on the brakes nearing the corner’s apex.

Verstappen then shot clear of Norris with his hards finally functioning as he desired, while Perez took another five tours to catch and pass the McLaren. He got by with an even better DRS run compared to his team-mate’s on Norris as lap 18 kicked off, with that tour ending as Verstappen’s lead reached 5.4s.

"With the backmarkers at the end, the tyres were getting a bit cold and it was a bit slippery getting close to them. And then also you don't want to take too much risk" Max Verstappen

From there, the contest at the front was over. Verstappen edged away by an average of 0.15s each time to lap 41’s end, at which point his lead began to rather dip and bubble thereafter as he lapped battling traffic at the rear of the pack.

This, he said, was the only element of the race that came even a little close to perilous.

“With the backmarkers at the end, the tyres were getting a bit cold and it was a bit slippery getting close to them,” Verstappen explained. “And then also you don't want to take too much risk. We had a good gap behind. So that was probably a little bit of a difficult moment – to pace yourself there.”

Perez reckoned the race had been “looking good”, before the safety car.

“I was within three seconds from Max and I think the degradation on that medium stint was looking quite good,” he said. “But, unfortunately, then we were compromised with such an early safety car, and that meant that basically everyone just pitted. [The penalty then] pretty much compromised our race.”

After the safety car and penalty, Perez felt his race was compromised in terms of trying to fight Verstappen for the win

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

But that time addition wasn’t a factor in depriving Perez of his second second-place finish in succession in 2024’s opening phase. Leclerc ended up 10s adrift at the flag, which became 5s once Perez’s penalty was applied.

He’d reached that point after spending five of the post-restart laps chasing first Perez and then Hamilton. Leclerc eventually overhauled his future Ferrari team-mate with a battling, outside-line pass into Turn 1 on lap 15, where Hamilton made him work on the inside before Turn 2 arrived in a flash.

Leclerc then had to close a 3.3s gap to Norris, which he did over 13 tours that included Perez getting Norris, before passing the McLaren with another simple DRS run down the main straight as lap 26 ended and 27 commenced. After this, Leclerc’s gap to Verstappen sat at 15.6s.

By the time Verstappen’s times dipped from the low-1m32s and even high 1m31 back to the 1m33s as the lapped the tail of the field, the gap had increased by 5.2s. Yet, Leclerc was adamant his pace compared to the leader “stayed more or less stable towards the end, but then it was too late for us to put them under any pressure”.

This rather stacks up given Leclerc edged the final 10 laps by an average of 0.223s – if we take Verstappen getting stuck into the traffic on lap 41 as an obvious cutting off point. But here it’s important to remember Leclerc had to clear just two backmarkers to Verstappen’s six.

By the very end of the race with each in clean air, bar Leclerc lapping Daniel Ricciardo’s RB on the final tour, he was able to top Verstappen’s personal best lap time by 0.141s. This gave the Monegasque the fastest lap bonus point thanks to his 1m31.632s effort, which ended Verstappen’s flawless run so far, points-wise.

Two things undid Ferrari’s race, aside from the obvious element of the safety car pitstops putting other cars between Leclerc and the Red Bulls. The first came down to differing tyre performance on the two cars.

“We were struggling all the time at the beginning of the stints – whether it was at the beginning of the medium or beginning of the hards, we struggled to switch the tyres on,” explained Leclerc, echoing his qualifying struggles the previous day on new softs.

Leclerc struggled to get his tyres up to temperature at the start of stints - a rare problem for Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Then, towards the end of the stint we were pretty good. With the medium, we didn't really see that. With the hard, we saw that towards the end, but it was too late to actually recover what we had lost at the beginning with the battles we had.”

A rare turn up indeed – a new ground effect Ferrari that had trouble getting its tyres into the best working temperature range, to the extent it suffered little of what degradation this track results in.

The other issue was Ferrari had “a little bit less top speed than the others”, Leclerc added.

He also claimed this “was wanted” in the red team and centred on it running a bigger rear wing and downforce/drag package when compared to its rivals at Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes.

“We'll review that to see if it was the right decision or not,” he continued.

"I don't think tyre degradation was a thing. It was more about tyre warm-up and we struggled a bit more to bring them to the right temperature in order to push" Charles Leclerc

When it came to passing Norris, it’d taken Leclerc eight more laps than Perez spent behind the McLaren, but he didn’t believe the tyre warm-up issue “was the thing that was making me struggle to pass him”.

“Once they went into temperature, which was the case when I was close to Lando, then it was more the top speed that was making me struggle to get past,” Leclerc explained.

But Ferrari wanted the added downforce in the choice to eschew its 2023 Monza/Las Vegas skinny rear wing special to help it minimise rear sliding at this tricky, corner-filled layout. Its recent tyre degradation woes will have played a part in this decision, but actually the SF-24 treated its rubber very well overall, once it was in the right window.

“Today I don't think tyre degradation was a thing,” Leclerc concluded. “It was more about tyre warm-up and we struggled a bit more to bring them to the right temperature in order to push. Which made it also a bit more difficult because I had to overtake cars during my warm-up. And that was a bit trickier for us than for them. And that's where [Red Bull] pulled the gap.”

Leclerc had to settle for a distant third as Ferrari continues to try to master the Pirelli rubber

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

His team boss agreed with that assessment. “With a good start we could’ve been there, we could’ve fought,” said Fred Vasseur. “And I think in Jeddah it's quite easy to overtake and for them they have a better top speed. It was a choice [with Ferrari’s bigger rear wing], but on some occasion we will have other opportunities.”

Overall, Vasseur was left to focus on how “in the race last year in Jeddah, we were something like 1.1s off [on average race pace] and I would say today probably, as soon as we were in free air, we were more like four-five tenths off than something else”.

“The fact we were able to do the fastest lap in the last lap with Hamilton and Norris pushing with softs was a good signal of the improvement we've made on tyre management and consistency,” Vasseur added.

“In quali, they have perhaps two-three tenths on us and in the race a bit more, but it's difficult to estimate because we don't know if they were pushing at max [car potential all race]. But the feeling is more positive. That, if you come back in this region [closer to Red Bull overall], you know if you do a step, you can put some pressure on them.”

Again, thoughts go to some future point where another team can do battle against Red Bull. Perhaps one day even more than one.

At McLaren and Mercedes, Piastri on the safety car stop medium-hard strategy ended up fourth – 32s behind Verstappen and 13.4s adrift of Leclerc. The Australian had pursued Hamilton for 22 laps, nearly getting him on the 34th tour, but for a locked left-front having Piastri off at the opening turns.

Just as it looked as if he was about to finally get by Hamilton for good two laps later, the Mercedes headed to the pits.

There, Hamilton took on the softs Vasseur mentions, as did Norris on the next lap from further up the road. Norris emerged with a 0.5s gap back to Hamilton at the start of lap 39, having lost his previous 4.4s advantage largely due to a slow right-rear change.

Hamilton did well to defend from Piastri but his alternative strategy gamble didn't pay off

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

This dropped the duo behind Alonso, his constant pursuer George Russell, once the Mercedes driver had jumped eventual final point-scorer Nico Hulkenberg post-restart, and the race’s other Briton: Bearman.

Norris and Hamilton had a 6.3s gap to close to the debutante over the final 12 laps, but could only halve this by the flag.

During this fruitless chase, Norris weaved naughtily towards the end of the main straight on lap 40 and copped a black-and-white driving standards warning flag after stymying the Mercedes’ momentum.

The trio therefore ended up in seventh, eighth and ninth – Bearman’s result impressing his newfound peers.

"He has shown the whole paddock what he is capable of. After a performance like that, it's a matter of time before we see him permanently in the Formula 1 paddock" Charles Leclerc on Oliver Bearman

“Extremely impressive,” Leclerc said of his temporary team-mate. “I think everybody has seen that. Obviously having him in the same garage, seeing how he worked and how he approached this whole situation with such calm was very impressive. Obviously with so much excitement as well, but it was really impressive.

“I think he has shown the whole paddock what he is capable of. And I think after a performance like that, it's a matter of time before we see him permanently in the Formula 1 paddock.”

Ending as we started, with future dreams. Both may well come true one day, but perhaps not until 2025 at the earliest…

The 2024 Saudi Arabian GP will be remembered for Bearman's F1 debut for Ferrari

Photo by: Ferrari