FP2 ANALYSIS - SINGAPORE GP

 

CONDITION:

Track temperature: 33,1°C

Air temperature 30,1°C

Humidity: 74,0%

Wind: about 6 km/h SW

LONG RUN ANALYSIS:

The last 15 minutes of practice were the stage for the race simulations, what did we notice?

A very good step for the SF24 of Charles Leclerc, which records a race simulation of 6L (not counting laps in which times were higher due to external causes) of 97.46 s/ lap with medium tyres with already 9 laps.

In fact the Monegasque driver was the fastest with medium tyres and can also boast of a very good consistency, recording one after another very similar times (I mean a difference of a few thousandths).

The same cannot be said of his teammate, Carlos Sainz, who still has difficulties with balancing, especially the brakes, where he went long on several occasions, taking the escape routes that the circuit provides. It records a pace of 97.91 s/lap, slower than the teammate by 0.45 s/lap.

Ferrari in FP1 had a balance that tended to understeer, while for the FP2 they preferred a balance that made the SF24 oversteering, balance that is good for the drivers, During the session they had to make adjustments to the flap of the new front wing to reduce even more the understeer. So the team in Maranello is working hard on the attitude of the car into the curve, trying to improve the rotation.

Let’s move to McLaren, where Norris tries a long run with soft, which are not excluded for this edition (we saw them in the race last year). An excellent step also for him, of 97.29 s/ lap, but that can not be compared being the only one to have used them, not bad even the constancy, but at the moment the best was the rival with n° 16.

The winner of Baku, Oscar Piastri manages to record only 4 clean laps for the long run, with a pace of 97.65 s/ lap, slower than the Monegasque 0.19 s/ lap,

Not very good instead the two Red Bull and Mercedes: in fact, Russell’s does not seem to be too bad, even if he did not manage to finish the session in the best way, he recorded a pace of 97.78 s/ lap, slower than the Monaco and the Australian, but faster than Spanish.

Hamilton complained several times about the lack of traction, later the engineer confirms this deficiency and is told in which curves it happens (I could be inaccurate) the curves are: 7,8,9,12,13,14. He is later told that there is a high loss of time in the turn 5 zone. The Mercedes driver from 2014, records a long run of 97.90.

As mentioned, even the Austrian team was able to have no problems: Verstappen and Perez complain a lot about the lack of grip, in particular Verstappen says that there is no grip on either front or rear tyres. The same also the Mexican, adding also problems of rotation in the input curve, here is the radio communication: "Yeah, I’m not turning the car. I can’t fucking turn the car."

Here is the list of long run data:

Driver|L long run| Coumpond| Start tyres age| Pace (s/lap)

Nor | 6 | S | 7 | 97,29

Lec | 6 | M | 9 | 97,46

Pia | 4 | M | 9 | 97,65

Rus | 7 | M | 8 | 97,78

Ham | 6 | M | 8 | 97,90

Ver | 6 | H | 6 | 97,86

Sai | 6 | M | 10 | 97,91

QUALIFYING SIMULATION ANALYSIS:

With the simulation of the FP2 qualification I would not go into much detail (for time reasons) but give a broader view to other drivers. I will use this multiviewer chart to help me in the analysis:

What do we see at first sight? We see a faster Leclerc in the first two sectors, while Norris in the third, we talk in all three cases of a difference of a few thousandths. Piastri was also very close to the first two, but then lost a lot in the second and even in the third.

From my point of view, Norris and Leclerc were pushing much more than the others, although they are the favorites, at the moment both are satisfied with their setup, unlike their teammates, in particular Carlos Sainz, which as mentioned initially still has some problems with the balance.

We see a Red Bull that in the qualifying round has a great difficulty, in the first sector: Verstappen is 16th, losing about 0.2s from his teammate and 4/5 tenths from Leclerc; in the second sector Red Bull occupies the 12th and 13th position, with a gap of about 5 tenths from the first; while in the third Perez manages to approach, with two tenths difference from the first two, while Verstappen 18th, losing 4 tenths from his teammate and 6 from Leclerc and Norris.

Maybe they didn’t push like McLaren and Ferrari? It may be, but it’s also true that they can’t push like them.

At home Mercedes is better Russell than Hamilton, it seems that the British 7 times world champion, was better with the new floor, than with the previous one (I refer only to these last races). While his compatriot instead seems to be better, where in the first and second sector places near the first, but losing in the third sector. In the first sector Hamilton loses about 2 tenths of his teammate, in the second only 0.1s and in the third only a few thousandths.

We also highlight the performance of the non-top teams, we see in the first sector a good Racing Bulls, both drivers very close to Mercedes and even ahead of the two Red Bull. In the second sector too, even Ricciardo was faster than Sainz. In the last sector stands out the talented Colapinto, behind Perez’s Red Bull medo by 30 thousandths.

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