Singapore GP telemetry data: excellent degradation on Mediums, strong race pace for Ferrari SF24
Yesterday at 07:04 AM
Scuderia Ferrari finished round 18 of the 2024 Formula 1 season, the Singapore Grand Prix, with a fifth place for Charles Leclerc and a seventh place for Carlos Sainz, which can be considered a loss for the Italian side. A major mistake in the qualifying session could not be overcome by the Prancing Horse without the help of a Safety Car at the right moment. Unfortunately, that's what happened, as Bernd Mayländer stayed in the pit lane watching the race on TV screens. The pace at the 4.94-kilometre Marina Bay Street Circuit doesn't count for much, or at least it's not as important as it is on other tracks. What matters most on the circuit in Singapore is track position, in order to be able to ensure that during the race, the fastest strategy was to start on the Medium tire and switch to the Hard.
Starting on the Soft tire could have given a boost to gain positions, but in turn, the first pit stop to change compounds had to be done earlier. This is a very risky move on this track, as we'll explain shortly. For this reason, all teams saved at least one set of Mediums and one of Hards for the start of the race. It’s interesting to note that Carlos Sainz had an extra set of Softs to use, but on this type of circuit, it’s not worth stopping, as you lose many positions, which are hard to recover.
During the first stint, Lando Norris immediately set a very competitive pace. After the first seven laps, he even started to pull away from Max Verstappen. The latter focused on managing the tire temperatures on his Red Bull and extending his long run as much as possible. F1 strategists wanted to delay the stop, mainly due to traffic. By extending the stint, you reduce the chance of ending up behind slower drivers. Moreover, the white tire wasn't so much more performant to risk an undercut. On the contrary, an overcut was more likely. To avoid it, the pit stop had to be delayed.
Behind, the Ferrari cars didn't have a good start with Charles Leclerc, and even less so with Carlos Sainz. Here in Singapore, traffic is very limiting. This means that even with more pace, they couldn't overtake Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin or Yuki Tsunoda's Racing Bull. In this case too, the Maranello team focused their efforts on extending the stint as much as possible. The goal was to find themselves with a clear track to run their pace, which on paper was very good. The idea was to delay the pit stop significantly to take advantage of potential Safety Cars and perform an overcut on slower cars.
Carlos Sainz also started on the Medium tire, but lost more positions on the first lap and given the traffic, the Maranello team decided to pit him on lap 14, quite early, switching to the Hard compound. Ferrari ruled out the idea of starting on the white-banded Pirelli tires, a compound with which they could have easily extended the stint. The decision was based on the level of grip of the harder compound. They feared they wouldn't have enough traction early on. The Medium compound was the right compromise between grip and durability. Lewis Hamilton also pitted very early, likely because he was beginning to “block” George Russell a bit too much, who was right behind the seven-time Formula 1 world champion.
Mercedes chose the Soft tires for the start, but it didn't pay off. No positions were gained, and they ended up with a tire that had a shorter lifespan. On lap 18, they pitted to switch to the Hard tires. Lewis Hamilton immediately complained on the radio about the strategy, saying they had stopped too early. He was in traffic and hadn't managed the tires well, so they overheated on the surface. George Russell, on the yellow tire, went longer, and naturally, the future Ferrari driver suffered from his overcut. A questionable internal strategy. Max Verstappen pitted on lap 29, but the Red Bull team didn't calculate the pit-stop window well.
Upon rejoining the track, the current Formula 1 world champion found himself just behind Charles Leclerc. He quickly overtook him given the pace difference from the fresh Hard tires as compared to Charles’ old mediums, but it could have been a major mistake for Red Bull. The Monegasque driver continued at his pace, gaining more race time. On lap 37, the Ferrari driver switched to the Hard tire, having asked on the radio about the degradation profile seen on Carlos Sainz's SF-24. At that point, he was told that the degradation was fairly stable and that after a few laps, the handling tended to shift slightly toward oversteer.
The goal, according to the Maranello team's simulations, was to catch Lewis Hamilton, whose tires were much more worn, having pitted very early. Oscar Piastri also followed a strategy similar to Charles Leclerc's, extending his long run. If a Safety Car had come out between laps 30 and 37, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc would have had a huge advantage, as they could have made a 'free stop.' During those laps, Charles Leclerc had a pace similar to the McLaren driver, though he had to face some on-track battles that slowed him down a bit.
From the Ferrari pit wall, a lot of information came through to take care of the Hard tires as much as possible. They talked about minimum speed at turn 10 and told the Monegasque driver to limit wheelspin out of turn 8. In about 25 laps, Charles Leclerc gained 27 seconds on George Russell, but when he arrived behind the Mercedes W15 car, there wasn't enough in the tires to overtake him on track. A real shame, not so much for the missed opportunity to take 4th place, but for the wasted chance to fight on equal terms with McLaren for the race victory in the Singapore Grand Prix. The pace was there, and having to settle for less in a weekend where nothing was lacking is truly frustrating.
— see video above —
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