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Two Ferraris in Q3 with Charles Leclerc fourth and Carlos Sainz eighth. Raise your hands who would not have signed this Reds placement before qualifying for the Bahrain GP. And, on the other hand, in Cavallino’s team there are those who can complain because the Spaniard could have been closer to his teammate and only a mistake in the last race made him go further back than he deserved to be.
The Scuderia looks to the future with the idea of who can realize that they have turned the page in the face of the bitter disappointments of the past year. The SF21 may not be a ray of war, but it looks like an honest car that has fixed the many design errors that had made the SF1000 so unsuitable for the Prancing Horse.
The Maranello team continues to discover the Reds’ potential and has not given the hook to try to overcome the Q2 trap on medium tires as Red Bull, Mercedes, AlphaTauri and McLaren tried.
Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) paid for this choice and were swallowed up in the group, while the two McLarens of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, after realizing that they were at risk after the first race, became red tires. on time, in line with Ferrari’s strategy.
Cavallino’s wall did well not to take unnecessary risks, trying to consolidate the good things in Maranello that they are consolidating, without affecting morale with a tactical error. The Scuderia must be rediscovered before seizing every opportunity.
Of course, tomorrow in the race it is easy to expect that Pierre Gasly, with the surprising AlphaTauri, will benefit from having yellow tires and can extend the first stint to make a race without soft tires, but at the start Leclerc could try to surprise Bottas. who will have less grip with socks, although he has to shoot on the dirtiest side of the court.
In fact, the Monegasque has clearly said that he does not want to start battles with those who are out of his reach, so it is easy to believe that, barring unforeseeable events, he will build a career to defend the excellent harpooned fourth place in the standings. , which would rate Ferrari as the third force in the Circus, immediately hitting the target this season.
The feeling is that on paper the AlphaTauri and McLaren may have something more than the Red: the 065/6 engine confirmed to be a good step up compared to the power unit that was castrated by the FIA in 2020, but there is no doubt that 20-30 more horses are missing to close the gap of the Mercedes power unit that the two MCL35 M papayas will be able to exploit.
Behind the first three there will be a battle on the verge of hundredths of a second: it will be important not to make mistakes to capitalize on a good start to the season and it will be interesting to observe how Sainz, a true racing animal “, will be able to push the two drivers of his ex-team to re-enter the group of pursuers.
The Ferrari seems a bit more loaded than AlphaTauri and McLaren – the SF21 is no longer an aerodynamic wall like the SF1000, so it can afford a bit more crashed ailerons with flaps in the hopes of making the soft tires last longer, avoiding the damaging overheating of the rear. Tires that suffer from Sakhir’s particularly abrasive asphalt.
The top speeds in the speed trap say so: Tsunoda was credited 318.9 km / h, with Gasly capable of 317.8 km / h, while the two McLarens reached 315.6 km / h with Ricciardo and 314 , 2 with Norris. The red with more wings stopped at 312.4 km / h with Leclerc, not far from Poleman Verstappen’s Red Bull with 313.6 km / h.
Ultimately, the game will be played on the life of the tires and Cavallino’s technicians have continued to work to dissipate the heat from the tires with the flow of the brake lines. It’s easy to expect a Ferrari on defense, but we should no longer see it “stripped” on the straight like at Mugello last year.
There is moderate optimism in Maranello, even if you wonder what caused Sainz’s sudden stop at the end of Q1. It was immediately thought that Carlos could have inadvertently touched the button that turns off the power unit, but the Spanish error seems out of the question and we must be vigilant for the vibrations that may have caused the electronics to plummet.
Fortunately, Sainz was good at restarting the engine with the MGU-K option that can be used as a starter on the SF21. This time it went well …
