Why Verstappen remains favourite at Imola even if Ferrari cures Leclerc’s sprint downfall

Max Verstappen will start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on pole at a track where overtakes through 18 of the 19 corners are notoriously difficult. By that measure alone, it’s of no great wonder why the defending champion might be considered the white-hot favourite to beat the red cars on their home soil, a short trip from Ferrari headquarters at Maranello.

Yet, despite ceding first place just three laps from home in the first sprint race of the 2022 Formula 1 season, Charles Leclerc heads to bed on Saturday night with a certain degree of confidence. For he is placing his faith in engineers - ones who have so far enabled him to land two wins and a second place to comfortably lead the points early on - to rectify the front-right soft tyre graining that dropped him into the clutches of Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Leclerc conceded that his efforts early in the 21-lap sprint contest to ensure he was out of DRS range from Verstappen had overworked the tyres. They started to ail in the closing stages of Saturday’s race and his ultimate lead of 1.7s dropped below the 1s threshold and left him prey to the RB18. Verstappen made amends for dropping behind his Ferrari rival off the line, having endured a clutch kick and too much wheel spin, by lunging into Tamburello. Leclerc left him space on the outside so that the Dutch racer could remain on the asphalt in the latest display of mutual respect that the pair have so demonstrated in wheel-to-wheel combat this term.

“I had a very good start,” reflected Leclerc. “We weren't side by side for Turn 1 and I could focus on my own race from that moment onwards. I tried to push at the beginning to get a bit of a gap and for Max to not be in the DRS zone because I knew that I would have been vulnerable if it was the case.

“But I paid the price a little bit later on in the race and had some graining and then really struggled in the last two, three laps.”

Verstappen and Leclerc put on a fair fight in the sprint, with the Red Bull driver holding the performance edge

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

If Ferrari can get on top of the front-right graining overnight for the full-length GP on the anti-clockwise layout, Leclerc reckons he can be a serious threat for victory aboard the F1-75. That potential fix, he and Verstappen both say, will be the deciding factor in reversing the result - not the considerable power of the slipstream and single DRS zone that was on show in the sprint race down the main straight.

Leclerc continued: “We need to fix the graining most of all. It felt like we damaged the tyres a bit more, especially the front-right for some reason. We'll focus on that. The pace [between the two cars] is quite similar.

“What made the difference at the end was the graining phase that I went through at the end of the race. If we managed to cure that all for tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that we're in the fight for the win.”

However, there are reasons to check the optimism. Most straightforward, with parc ferme coming into effect after Friday qualifying during a sprint race weekend, Ferrari is limited with the set-up tweaks it might hope to lavish on the car to rectify, or at least reduce, the problem.

More worryingly for Leclerc and Ferrari, even if those graining issues are banished for the GP, is the ominous pace both Red Bulls demonstrated through FP2 early on Saturday afternoon

Another indicator is that Verstappen was the clear pacesetter in Q3 and won the sprint race to have pole position. That puts the onus on the Ferrari driver to make the move. Leclerc has of course outwitted his rival in Bahrain most notably as they tactically traded places into the DRS detection zones, but few would assume Leclerc will have the upper hand every time they dice for position.

Verstappen had made mistakes throughout the final part of qualifying. Notably, he caught a wobble at Tamburello and then locked up into Rivazza. That ensured he was super tentative applying the throttle on the lap that would eventually earn him pole after a total of five red flags.

But even then, having lifted off and downshifted to compensate for the yellow flag triggered by Valtteri Bottas parking up with a broken exhaust in the final sector, Verstappen had another error left in him. He locked up into Tamburello and tumbled over the gravel, but his blushes were spared when the Bottas yellow flag morphed into a full red.

There was no clear frontrunner in the wet Friday running due to focus on qualifying and a spate of red-flag stoppages

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

As conditions grew worse in the delay as rain arrived again, no one could come close to Verstappen before Lando Norris ran off road to trigger the final stoppage and Q3 was ended 40s before time.

Leclerc had his final run compromised by the stop-start nature of qualifying as well. He aborted a second flying lap to better heat the tyres. But red flags scuppered that call, meaning he had to rely on a tame banker that was 0.8s adrift of Verstappen.

So, while neither driver nailed it completely in qualifying, Verstappen came out on top in the one-lap battle and then again over a longer distance in the sprint.

But more worryingly for Leclerc and Ferrari, even if those graining issues are banished for the GP, is the ominous pace both Red Bulls demonstrated through FP2 early on Saturday afternoon.

After the Thursday night deluge that had lasted well into Friday and came to impact qualifying so significantly, the track was reluctant to offer up grip in the early dry running of FP2. That was when Red Bull sent both Verstappen and Perez out on the quicker C4 soft tyre.

Verstappen completed an 11-lap run (minus out-, prep and in-lap) of which eight were without notable errors and so more representative of his pace during a race stint on the red-walled compound. For those, his average time was 1m20.795s. Perez, turning in 14 useable laps, was comfortably quicker and consistent as he averaged at 1m20.200s.

That six-tenth difference between team-mates can likely be attributed to varying fuel loads, Verstappen potentially running heavier in preparation for the full GP. Perez possibly more orientated to the sprint race, running lighter to gain grid positions after qualifying down in seventh following his run off the road at Acque Minerali in Q3.

The more important comparison, however, is how those times stacked up against Ferrari. Leclerc’s 11-lap C4 stint returned an average of 1m20.222s. That would appear to put him a whisker ahead of even Perez. But the Monegasque delivered his run on that compound in the final 15 minutes of the FP2 hour. In other words, when the track had evolved and was far quicker.

Leclerc pushed his tyre performance and encountered graining which allowed Verstappen to reel him in during the sprint race

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The simulations on the C3 mediums revealed a similar story. Verstappen’s average time from 13 representative laps was 1m20.644s. Perez, 1m19.927s from 10 laps on the yellow-walled rubber. Both stints arrived late on, again when the asphalt was being more generous with its grip levels.

Leclerc had completed his C3 running at the start of FP2, and from 13 competitive laps, his average effort was clocked at 1m22.179s. His total run was six laps shorter than Verstappen, which might indicate his F1-75 was carrying less fuel.

Ferrari can find comfort in the estimate from Pirelli, in so far as the tyre manufacturer expects the soft to be 0.4s quicker than the mediums. Therefore, if both cars were indeed running with the same fuel loads throughout, it places Leclerc two hundredths quicker a lap over a mid-teen stint than Verstappen. But that relies too heavily at this stage on Autosport (and Pirelli’s) best rounding to be a bankable advantage.

It might well be that track evolution and FP2 have little impact to the way in which the pace unfolds in the GP thanks to the weather forecast. At this rate, the tifosi will need to don their macs and pack umbrellas as rain is set for a return in time for the grand prix

Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola can provide Ferrari with optimism elsewhere, in so far as he expects graining to naturally reduce in the race as more rubber is smeared into the surface with every passing car. That could overcome the parc ferme limitations currently faced by Leclerc’s mechanics and rid him of his tyre woes.

Isola said: "Free practice today was the first session throughout the whole weekend so far when we saw some running on the slicks, with everyone concentrating on the medium and soft.

“The soft tyre actually performed better than many people expected, and this is why it was selected by the majority of drivers for the sprint. That came as something of a surprise: personally, I would have expected more drivers to gravitate towards the ‘classic’ choice of a medium for the sprint race.

“There was a bit of graining observed on the soft but no more than would have been ordinarily expected under these circumstances, with a ‘green’ track after yesterday’s rain and reasonably cool weather.”

Perez also appeared pacy for Red Bull during both FP2 and the sprint race

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

However, it might well be that track evolution and FP2 come to have little impact to the way in which the pace unfolds in the GP thanks to the weather forecast. At this rate, the tifosi will need to don their macs and pack umbrellas as rain is set for a return in time for the grand prix. And while FP1 was similarly slippery, none of Ferrari or Red Bull turned in a consistent run of laps to preview their long-run pace in low-grip conditions. Both instead preferred to nail qualifying trim.

In short, heading into the fourth race of the season, Verstappen appears to hold a slender advantage in his attempts to make it two GP wins apiece with Leclerc. That advantage, however small, exists on paper. But paper has never stood up well when left out in the rain.

Could weather conditions for the Emilia Romagna GP dictate the outcome of the race?

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images