The long-run data that offers Ferrari hope in Canada amid Leclerc engine pain

It was always going to happen. After Charles Leclerc’s smoky end to last week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix and with Ferrari discovering that the engine he’d been running there was left “beyond repair”, future grid penalties for taking new parts was inevitable.

And it’s happening immediately at this weekend’s race in Montreal, with Leclerc set to drop at least 10 places for taking a third control electronics element of the 2022 campaign. That could become more (a back row start) if Ferrari opts to add further new parts to his engine pool, which may be wise given the power train that failed in Baku was a mix of ageing and newer parts – including the internal combustion engine running when a turbo and MGU-H failed while he was dominating in Spain.

Leclerc’s work on Friday, then, must be viewed in that context – because Ferrari gave Leclerc an unusual workload in FP2, the traditional session for race-data gathering. There, the Monegasque driver ran the soft tyres throughout, which suggests Ferrari is at least considering giving him an alternative strategy to try and minimise the impact of his upcoming big drop down the order.

FP2 overall order

Leclerc first used the red-walled C5 rubber to get up to speed in FP2, before completing his qualifying simulation run a few minutes after championship leader Max Verstappen had blasted to a session-leading 1m14.127s just past the one-hour session’s halfway point.

Leclerc’s flier – where Autosport understands Red Bull and Ferrari were tracked making similar gains down the long Montreal back straight, suggesting they were running similar power modes at that stage of the second afternoon session yesterday – came in just 0.081s adrift. It also the best time middle sector that contains the Montreal track’s more flowing and higher-speed corners, with Verstappen on top in the other two thirds.

Ferrari has pace in Canada, but Leclerc has a grid penalty to overcome

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Then Leclerc got down to work on race-running the softs, which only four other teams (Alpine, Aston Martin, AlphaTauri and Haas) tried in similar circumstances on Friday. Leclerc’s average of 1m18.464s came in 0.457s a lap quicker than Esteban Ocon’s next best run for Alpine, which was completed over one third of Leclerc’s 15-lap stint.

That’s a strong time on a fragile compound – one that the leading teams avoided (although it should be noted on very different tyre constructions and with the previous 13-inch wheels) last time Formula 1 was in Montreal three years ago. Starting on the softer tyre might give Leclerc a better launch off the line on Sunday, but it comes with the risk that an early stop would leave him exposed in the event of a virtual or real safety car interruption.

But even if Ferrari is just eying doing something different on Sunday, it’s how it performed on a different compound on Friday that might perhaps lift Leclerc’s spirits when considering his grid penalty and the 34-point gap to Verstappen he faces after his latest reliability calamity.

Medium tyre averages

As can be seen above, in the other F1-75, Carlos Sainz produced the best average stint time on the medium compound in the late-FP2 long runs. In dry conditions on Sunday, it would be logical to expect the frontrunners to start on this tyre – Pirelli’s 2022 C4 – and then switch to the hard, which this weekend is the C3 that the teams have such a good understanding with due to its use at so many rounds so far this year.

There’s an immediate caveat to note –that Sainz’s stint was only seven laps compared to Verstappen’s 17 tours to lead the averages on the mediums for Red Bull. But the Dutchman’s FP2 race run also contained something that could give Ferrari a boost heading into a weekend where it just must hit back against its rival after such a disastrous recent run.

This is that Verstappen’s race simulation started off with four tours around eight seconds off the pace (and in one case over 20s slower than his personal best), which means he did not stress his rubber as would be the case in race conditions, with little let up from a chasing pack. So, he may not be able to run as quickly for as long on race day.

Verstappen led the way in the practice times, but his race pace could help Ferrari

Photo by: Patrick Vinet / Sutton images

“It got very tricky at times due to the strong and gusty wind, but we managed to complete all our programme without any issues,” said Sainz. “Understanding the tyres will be very important come Sunday and we gathered good data with today’s run plan.”

At the same time as all that and ominously for Ferrari, the world champion - who topped both sessions on Friday - got off to a very smooth start in terms of gelling with his car. After a run of recent races where the lack of pointy front-end rotation has exposed Verstappen’s understeer dislike, here he was immediately happy with his RB18’s balance.

“It's quite a positive day,” he reflected after FP2, moments before the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was soaked by a second heavy rainstorm in as many days. “I think immediately the car was working quite well. Of course, there are always things you're looking at to try and to find a bit more of a complete balance. But I think today for me, it was a good start to the weekend.

“The softest compound is always the hardest one to nail, so I think there is definitely a bit more time in that [over a flying lap]. But even then, we have a competitive car so that's good.”

“One touch to the kerb, and the thing goes flying. It's so stiff. And here, you need to be able to use the kerbs. So, it's very, very tricky" Lewis Hamilton

In the other Red Bull, Sergio Perez wound up 1.040s adrift of Verstappen’s leading time in FP2, which meant he didn’t trouble the top 10 in that session. Perez put the gap in the qualifying simulations down to “an issue with the set-up” that threw his balance off around a lap where confidence is key to the best times.

This brings us to Mercedes – the team that has won four of the last five Montreal races, notwithstanding Sebastian Vettel crossing the line first here back in 2019 and losing out to Hamilton due to his penalty for re-joining in an unsafe manner after an off at the Turns 3/4 chicane. At the Silver Arrows this time around, however, the team and its drivers are anything but confident.

“For me, it was a disaster,” Hamilton said of his Friday. “It's like the car is getting worse. Like it's getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it.”

Damning stuff. And the result was more pain in terms of poor placings for what has been F1’s most successful squad in the modern era. George Russell led the way with seventh in FP2, while Hamilton, noticeably holding his back as he returned from the drivers’ meeting alongside his team-mate and Sainz as night approached yesterday, finished 13th.

Mercedes begins the Canadian GP weekend under a dark cloud

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Data Autosport has seen puts Mercedes’ main losses to Verstappen over his and Russell’s respective best FP2 laps at the Turns 6 and 7 long left and then right-hander in the middle sector, the slow-speed Turn 10 hairpin and the final chicane leading onto the pitstraight. But the team is understood to have reached similar straightline speed performance to Red Bull and Ferrari.

Having switched its W13s back to the same floor specification for FP2 after the experimental, downforce-shedding floor Hamilton ran in FP1 was deemed to offer no benefit, Mercedes also raised its rideheight. This apparently reduced its porpoising problem to a certain degree compared to Baku, but the performance loss associated with this was encountered again.

Hamilton’s 0.45s gap to Russell was largely put down to the seven-time world champion not gathering everything together on his FP2 qualifying simulation effort, but the main problem is that neither Mercedes driver can get the confidence they want through rear grip. This is not a good thing with the walls so close in Montreal…

“One touch to the kerb, and the thing goes flying,” said Hamilton. "It's so stiff. And here, you need to be able to use the kerbs. So, it's very, very tricky. It's not the Montreal that I know – that I'm used to – and that I've experienced in my career.

“It's the worst that I've ever felt any car here. I'm hoping overnight we can try and make some changes. But, fundamentally, it's just the fundamentals of a car – it is what it is. And it's going to be a struggle.”

Verstappen, Leclerc and Sainz were trailed in FP2 by Vettel’s Aston and it has been suggested that the green team may have made a significant breakthrough with its reworked AMR22 for this round. This is because Vettel’s long run on the mediums was also strong. Although on a comparatively short stint length, it still beat Mercedes and led the midfield.

Mercedes’ best long run on the medium was Russell’s 1m18.654s average and, while that's a chunk behind the leaders, his performance over that stint is providing what confidence Mercedes can take away from the opening day of action at a track where its record has previously been so good.

Vettel got the best out of the Aston Martin package in practice

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

But it’s worth pointing out here that Russell was understood to be running a bigger, higher downforce rear wing – “probably the biggest deviation in set-up Lewis and I have had all season,” he explained. This will have aided his tyre performance in that long run.

But it may not be Mercedes’ best option for Sunday’s race as the extra drag will make overtaking tricky, as could be seen when Hamilton was stuck in Imola’s DRS trains earlier this season. Mercedes will now have to make a call on what wing level compromise is best for the rest of the weekend here in Canada.

And the remaining weekend time has a large degree of uncertainty hanging over it, all down to the dramatic weather Montreal has been experiencing over the last few days. At the time of writing, rain is forecast to be falling during qualifying, which could mix up the order and offer opportunities to those teams that are expecting pain in a fully dry run.

“It got very tricky at times due to the strong and gusty wind, but we managed to complete all our programme without any issues" Carlos Sainz

The post-FP2 rain on Friday not only left the apexes at Turns 1 and 14 completely submerged, with water only draining away very slowly from this old-school, weather-beaten venue, but it will have reset grip levels.

The same could happen again tonight and definitely will if the qualifying forecast proves to be correct. This was why the teams spent extra time doing high-fuel runs in FP1, which had the same 2pm local start time as Sunday’s race.

But, come rain or shine, Friday’s pacesetter is confident.

“For Sunday, we have a competitive car whatever happens [on Saturday],” Verstappen concluded.

Verstappen remains confident of Red Bull's pace in whatever conditions

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images