Why Ferrari can take it to the wire in Austria despite Verstappen’s sprint dominance

Ferrari could be accused of being more effective at beating itself than it is Red Bull right now. Unreliability ensured a win in Spain and possibly Azerbaijan went up in smoke. Then 1-2s were squandered at Monaco and Silverstone by highly questionable strategy calls.

PLUS: How Ferrari’s Monaco headache became its Silverstone migraine

The way the pitwall then allowed Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to trip over one another in the sprint race in Austria on Saturday, followed by the two drivers’ decidedly grumpy body language, suggests Ferrari is still leaving the door wide open for Red Bull. But should it take control of the intra-team battle in time for the full grand prix at Speilberg, it just might be able to exploit one of the RB18 machine’s few weaknesses to pounce for a very late victory.

Max Verstappen was able to lead the 23-lap sprint race on the Red Bull Ring by up to 3s as the Ferraris diced over second position and threatened to collide. While that gap did come down to 1.675s at the flag, beyond Turn 3 of the opening lap, the defending champion wasn’t made to sweat.

He should have been, though, in what could have played out as a role-reversal of the Emilia Romagna weekend sprint race. There, Friday qualifying pacesetter Leclerc asked too much of his Pirelli boots too early and left himself prey. When his rubber faded, Verstappen found a way past to win, having kept been kinder to his tyres in the opening laps.

In front of an adoring Dutch-dominated crowd at Red Bull’s home venue, it was Verstappen who tore away early on to chew through his tyres. He had to be aggressive into Turns 1 and 3 on the first lap to keep second-starting Leclerc at bay and then a resurgent Sainz behind.

Mission complete, he capitalised on the Scuderia squabble to create his early gap. That Leclerc was then able to close in the later stages was partly owed to the Monegasque having saved his medium tyres for the latter stages while Verstappen was beginning to pay for his early efforts.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner explained: “Max hit the tyres very hard to break the DRS, it’s quite a long stint and Ferrari were saving their tyres. But that’s the strategy we chose and what you take out at the beginning you get back at the end. Max managed it well and it was a reasonably comfortable race for him."

Verstappen was able to win as he pleased in the sprint, with Leclerc unable to challenge once he'd seen off Sainz

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Leclerc, meanwhile, said: “I was trying to manage my tyres for the end of the race, but it wasn't enough to catch Max at the end… I was probably the one managing the most at the beginning and the one maybe pushing the most at the end.”

But there was another factor at play in determining the diminishing gap, one that proves the RB18 isn’t infallible even if its fuel pump-induced retirements of Bahrain and Australia seem like a distant memory. Although the minimum weight limit for dry car and driver has increased to 798kg for the switch to ground-effect, it’s been well covered that many design departments have struggled to match the target with the addition of beefed-up crash structures. Red Bull is one of those that is carrying additional bulk.

OPINION: Can F1 turn back from its heavyweight path?

That hurts Adrian Newey’s car most when it’s running in low-fuel trim. It’s why Leclerc was able to stitch together his run of four consecutive pole positions between Miami and Baku, leading Verstappen to ask for more one-lap pace to make up the lost ground. The heft also makes itself known in the late stages of a race, when the 100kg of fuel for a full grand prix have largely been burned off.

According to Autosport’s calculations, for the final 16 laps, Leclerc posted an average time of 1m09.093s. That appears to hand him very nearly a tenth over the defending champion - Verstappen clocking 1m09.190s

Verstappen explained: “We are still a bit heavy. So, of course, when all the fuel comes out, that is just a limitation we have. We still need to lose weight with the car, which we're working on. But that's why, I guess in the race, it's a little bit less of an issue because first of all, you cannot push like in qualifying so probably that helps a bit with the way we have the car. That weight issue with a full tank is a little bit less visible.”

Combine the overworked tyres and low-fuel deficits of the RB18 and a picture begins to build as to why Verstappen was reeled in by Leclerc and Sainz late on in the Spielberg sprint.

The average lap times reinforce this observation. From his consistent string of 1m09s efforts, from lap 17 to the flag, Verstappen began to slow by two or three tenths and occasionally bothered the 1m09.6s. By contrast, Leclerc - albeit a little more inconsistent as he navigated lapped traffic and still slowing in line with his tyres degrading, could just dip into the 1m08s and never went north of a 1m09.4s. Sainz was almost identical to his team-mate as he completed the top three.

Had Ferrari been more decisive, whether falling on the side of Leclerc or Sainz, it could have used that pace advantage to at least heap the pressure on the leader. That’s even if on this occasion either Ferrari wouldn’t have able to complete a pass on Verstappen for the ultimate sprint spoils given the truncated run time – made worse by Zhou Guanyu’s car dying at the final corner to force another formation lap. The projected 71 tours of the full GP offer a greater window. Instead, by not picking Leclerc for his prominence as the closest title rival to Verstappen and for having track position, the RB18 was able to pull clear.

Leclerc and Sainz's duel allowed Verstappen to make a gap that was too big to bridge in the confines of the sprint, but a full GP distance could be a different story

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Even though Verstappen ominously secured pole with a messy final run in Q3, and Red Bull has had the generally superior race pace, Ferrari’s hopes are further bolstered if you look beyond low-fuel running. It lays a claim to having the fastest car outright in Austria.

Leclerc and Sainz finally stopped threatening to crash into one another on lap seven once the Spaniard had hit the brakes through Turn 7 to avoid clipping the edge of the gravel trap. Having fell a second behind Leclerc as a result, and with Verstappen 3s up the road, the top three were all running in fairly clean air. Taking their average lap time from lap eight to the flag, therefore, again Ferrari had the fractional pace advantage before any of the RB18’s excess weight was truly exposed.

According to Autosport’s calculations, for the final 16 laps, Leclerc posted an average time of 1m09.093s. That appears to hand him very nearly a tenth over the defending champion - Verstappen clocking 1m09.190s - with Sainz levelling out at 1m09.272s. All while on very similar fuel loads, in identical track conditions, and on same-age tyres.

Leclerc might just be the quicker Ferrari on Sunday. Should he subsequently not be hurt by indecision regarding team orders from the pitwall, and exploit his late low-fuel speed, Verstappen may well sit within DRS range as the chequered flag approaches.

There is an end to these positive signs for Ferrari, however. That comes with a study of the race simulations in FP2, which Sainz topped overall by 0.05s over Leclerc. Verstappen was third-quickest, 0.168s shy of the pace. The red cars combined to set an unmatched 83 laps but favoured running the softest-available C5 compound for its later long-stint simulations. From a clean 13-lap go, Leclerc’s average lap was a 1m09.616s, according to Autosport’s number crunching. Sainz levelled out at 1m09.591s.

That would appear to put them slower than Verstappen’s 1m09.424s, a reading not helped by the Red Bull running on the C4 mediums. Pirelli’s estimate is for a 0.4s offset, which could put Verstappen as low as a 1m09.000s.

But that doesn’t factor in that the F1-75s ran for longer on the more delicate tyres to suggest more of a drop off as the stint wore one. That could skew the times. Nor are engine modes and fuel levels known. Further, perhaps Ferrari can take faith from heading into the grand prix with much more data on the soft tyre compared to Red Bull, while the hards are virtually an unknown quantity at this circuit for both teams having barely been touched.

With neither team opting to run the red-walled rubber in the sprint, it remains to be seen what role the quickest tyres will play in genuine race conditions. But should Leclerc find himself ahead of Sainz on a set of Pirellis he knows well for a late dash to the line when running with low-fuel, Verstappen might just have his mirrors full.

Will Leclerc be able to challenge crowd favourite Verstappen more closely on Sunday?

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images