Why Ferrari’s Monza practice pace flatters its chances of home success

Ferrari has been mocked for its fumbled strategy, its poorly executed pitstops and its iffy reliability that appears to have already squandered a shot at championship success in 2022. Charles Leclerc has been criticised for his spin out of third place at Imola and his shunt into the Paul Ricard barriers while leading. And there appears to be a new element to the Scuderia’s undoing: its pace is seemingly in decline. Or, perhaps more accurately, Red Bull is getting quicker and quicker.

While a victory in Hungary was lost to Leclerc’s ill-fated switch onto the hard tyres, since the summer break, the red cars have struggled to come up with a convincing answer to Max Verstappen’s turn of speed, albeit Sergio Perez’s recent uninspiring form has left the door ajar for the brace of F1-75s. The reigning champion was utterly peerless in Spa as Leclerc ran over his rival's visor tear-off to prompt an early unplanned pitstop. After the early promise shown at Zandvoort, it was instead the Mercedes that took the fight to the lead RB18.

But Ferrari appears, on the surface at least, to have come out fighting at Monza on Friday. In the lead up to the Italian Grand Prix, it was Leclerc who led a team 1-2 in first practice. The Monegasque completed the 2.36 miles in 1m22.410s to sit 0.077s clear of his team-mate Carlos Sainz. The Mercedes duo ran third and fourth as Verstappen could only trouble fifth, with an uncharacteristic 0.43s to find, but he was held up by Lando Norris on his best lap.

Sainz mastered the 11 historic corners even quicker during the second, scorching hour of running. The British GP victor turned in a 1m21.664s to put Verstappen in his place by 0.143s while Leclerc completed a Scuderia sandwich in third, a further 0.05s in arrears.

The upturn in pace comes in front of a raucous tifosi, which has been living up to its motorsport stereotype by celebrating each passage of an F1-75, which sports its 75th anniversary tribute flash of yellow to break up the dull matte red livery. Although, to be fair, the grandstands did hand Verstappen a warm welcome out of the garage, too.

The improved Ferrari speed also comes during a weekend when the only ‘upgrades’ to speak of for all teams are circuit specific. Ferrari running a low-drag beam wing, Red Bull a chopped rear wing. On paper, there’s nothing initially to suggest Ferrari has found a silver bullet to recover the ground it appears to have lost in recent races. Instead, it has returned to its pre-summer break form.

Carlos Sainz had a rapid turn of pace to head FP2 at Monza

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

This would explain the overnight optimism - that and an effort to enthuse the home fans. Leclerc reckoned: “The feeling in the car was good. We still haven’t found the sweet spot in terms of balance, but we tried many different things throughout the day and know which direction we want to go in. Our race pace looked stronger than our qualifying pace, so if we put it all together there is quite good potential to have a solid weekend."

Overall FP2 order

However, the headline times belie an early evening’s work for Verstappen that can plausibly translate into his fifth win in a row, which would take his tally to 11 for the season - just two shy of the shared Michael Schumacher (2004) and Sebastian Vettel (2013) record for the most prosperous campaign in F1 history.

We know from Verstappen’s might in the first sector at Spa and his readings at Miami and Jeddah most of all that the rebadged Honda engine is the straight-line king, always bothering the top of the speed traps. But so far at Monza, that’s not the case at all. The RB18 is currently clocking 190mph in the designated zone, which ranks it only above the Haas cars. Ferrari, meanwhile, is top of tree as it hurtles through the gate at 196mph - level with the notoriously slippery Williams.

"Our race pace looked stronger than our qualifying pace, so if we put it all together there is quite good potential to have a solid weekend" Charles Leclerc

There is previous for this kind of tune from Red Bull. It hasn’t won at Monza since 2013 (and Verstappen has never been victorious here in his entire car-racing career). But nine years ago, it won what was then F1’s fastest race in the slowest car. Four-time champion Vettel opted for a short seventh gear ratio, relying on his early efforts in the race to break free from DRS range. For, despite the long straights that define Monza, top speed is not the be all and end all. With sufficient downforce to create a superior exit and carry more speed out of the corners, even if the V-max is lower, the driver is spending altogether less time on the straights to end up faster.

Ominously, though, Red Bull doesn’t appear to be repeating this trend. It has reversed its habits so far in the hybrid era. Since the switch to ground-effects, it’s not quite the benchmark when the going gets twisty as before. That seems to be Ferrari by a whisker. Instead, Red Bull is finding its last bit of pace at those top speed. So, for it to have not materialised so far suggests that in practice, engine modes were turned well down. It therefore seems there’s plenty more to come from those Japanese-born 1.6-litre V6s.

Initially it reads as though Red Bull is just holding back a little at this stage, but it might not go full guns blazing at all since Honda has some management concerns about its internal combustion engine and so could advise longer-lasting restrictions.

Red Bull appears to have been managing its power units in practice, not running at full whack

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Here's where it gets daunting for the opposition. With Red Bull still having not emptied the tanks, it is still quicker than Ferrari on the medium C3 tyre. During the race simulation, Sainz turned in six representative laps on the yellow Pirellis and his average lap was a 1m26.257s, according to numbers Autosport has seen. On the same compound, Verstappen posted 11 representative times from his 17-tour stint to level out at 1m25.882s. That would appear to give him 0.375s in hand. There were some aborted apexes and excursions over the first-chicane sausage kerbs for Sainz. Even still, that is a substantial gap to recover.

Average medium tyre times

The Mercedes fell behind Alpine over the medium-tyre long runs, George Russell more content with his run when on softs than Lewis Hamilton was shod with the C3s. A lack of rear grip and all-round balance frustrations grew worse as the day went on for the Silver Arrows. However, after effectively running the wrong specification rear wing for Spa, the W13 is at least not carrying the same excessive drag that stymied it so significantly on the Kemmel Straight two weeks ago.

Leclerc’s race pace was the best of the lot as he settled at 1m25.764s. However, this was on the theoretically quicker C4 soft tyre with its shorter shelf life. While Pirelli is yet to release the data with its estimation of the offset between compounds, the lowest the jump from soft to mediums has been all season is 0.4s. Further, Autosport understands that teams believe a 0.5s difference holds up to scrutiny. Leclerc, though, is seemingly only a little more than a tenth ahead. And as per Zandvoort where on Friday the hard tyre was barely considered, it could still play a vital role come race day.

This comes as Red Bull went experimental with its approach to practice. Verstappen said: “I think the car was pretty good today. We’ve been trying a few different things from FP1 to FP2. Some things worked and some didn’t. If you look at the long runs, we look good and of course that’s most important for the race. We did more long run practice knowing that we have the five-place grid penalty on Sunday. Everything seemed to work out quite well. There are still a few things that we can do better, but I think we should stand a good chance. The Ferraris look good. I’m not worried about them, but we still have a few things to finalise.”

Verstappen was not worried about Ferrari's pace

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

All told, it would appear to take away from some of Ferrari’s optimism. More so, given its grand prix attack has already been blunted. While the two DRS zones make Monza a good prospect for overtaking, Sainz will line up with a new control electronics, gearbox, energy store and MGU-K in the back of his car to collect 30 places’ worth of grid penalties. Leclerc is in the clear, Perez has a 10-place drop to serve and Verstappen only five thanks to his new internal combustion engine.

"We’ve elected to take this penalty here on the advice of our engine partner. Five places here isn’t too draconian" Christian Horner

And, it appears, Red Bull has already played its full hand and the Dutch ace isn’t expected to artificially fall any further. Team boss Christian Horner saying: “We’ve elected to take this penalty here on the advice of our engine partner. Five places here isn’t too draconian, so to have that extra engine added into our pool for the remaining seven races we just thought strategically is the right thing to be doing.”

As such, even if Verstappen was to qualify out of position even before his grid drop, it is Leclerc only who stands the best shot at pipping him to the top step of the podium. With Sainz coming from further behind, there will be fewer options for the Scuderia to perform a pincer manoeuvre to subdue the RB18 and return Ferrari a fitting victory as Monza celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Could Ferrari take victory at home?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images