#AMuS Binotto: "We expected the graining, but not this early. The balance of our car was not perfect today. With only one practice session in the rain, in preparation for a dry race, you can be off the mark."
#AMuS Binotto explains why Carlos Sainz did not have the tyre issues that Charles had: "Carlos drove a different race from his starting position. That's why his tyres were challenged in a completely different way.“
#AMuS With the cars remaining in parc fermé until the main race, the question remains whether Charles will have the same problems on Sunday.
Binotto: "There are ways to fix that with the permitted interventions."
e.g. with the aero balance, tyre pressure or the brake cooling.
#AMuS The sprint confirmed that the second Red Bull aero upgrade was successful and might have closed the gap to Ferrari.
Marko: "It did what we expected. Now we still have the weight factor on our side. The Ferrari is quite bit lighter than our car."
A little summary from the #AMuS episode after Imola:
• In Melbourne, Ferrari had the advantage that they still had since the beginning of the season.
With the Imola upgrade + weight reduction of the RB18, Schmidt believes that Red Bull has a slight advantage now.
• Binotto told Schmidt that Ferrari also need to fix the issue with the bouncing. Binotto said that every change before completely understanding the issue (even though it doesn’t cost Ferrari too much lap time) could go in the wrong direction.
• Red Bull is in a different position here. They don’t have the bouncing issue, and with the knowledge of not having it, they can develop the car more freely.
Schmidt believes that the balance of power can shift between Ferrari and Red Bull from race to race.
Lando: "If I wanna be like George I'd say I had like the 7th fastest car."
Max: "You should say it‘s all the driver mate."
Lando: "It is."
Max: "I think you had the worst car of the field."
Lando: "I think we are 9th or 10th."
😅
Lando: "My driving this weekend has been pretty amazing."
Max: "I agree."
Lando: "He agrees."
Max: "This will be a nice headline (laughs)."
Lando: "Idk it‘s difficult to say. It changes every weekend. The Mercedes wasn‘t this bad this weekend, we probably were still quicker throughout. The Alfa Romeo was maybe quicker, just couldn‘t get pass George."
A little summary from the #AMuS episode after Melbourne:
• RB hopes the Imola upgrade is giving them a similar step forward like the one during the Bahrain test [back then the upgrade fixed their porpoising issue completely, Mercedes still wondering how that was possible]
• Meanwhile Ferrari thinks there is more potential in the base car before bringing a big upgrade [similar to Alpine, who also made a step forward by simply understanding their car]
• Binotto believes that Imola is the wrong track to bring a big upgrade due to the sprint race.
• Honda is currently checking Max's power unit after the DNF in Melbourne. It could be a double disaster for Red Bull if the PU is also damaged.
#Corriere In Maranello, they have a well-defined plan for upgrades. They tested a new diffuser in Australia to improve aerodynamic efficiency. It could already be used in Imola or later in Barcelona.
#Corriere The issue with the bouncing / porpoising is considered serious at Ferrari and the next interventions [upgrades] will focus on the floor area to limit it, starting from Imola.
. @Charles_Leclerc on the development fight : "From how we have prepared and from how we are working in Maranello, I am absolutely not afraid of competition in the coming months. Experience has taught us that we must remain calm in difficult moments. It will be a tight fight."
Binotto: "Melbourne is not an easy track to find the balance between the slow and fast corners. We focused on protecting the rear tyres first and realised already on Friday that with the mediums the front left tyre starts to suffer from graining. We worked on that."
Binotto: "Charles also did a good job with tyre management."
Charles: "Ferrari has given me a wonderful car. It's a dream to drive. We had no problem with graining and were able to use them optimally from the first to the last lap."
Charles: "We have eliminated our weaknesses, which we still had in 2020 and 2021, step by step. I have a car that no longer forces me to do special things to get more speed out of it now."
Summary of the latest #AMuS episode after Bahrain:
• full praise for Charles [Schmidt said he drove like a champion]
• Ferrari is the team that understand its car the best (they seem to have the best overall package at the moment, good downforce level + speed)
• Ferrari has the best PU now (it could also be that Shell did a massive job with the E10 fuel)
• AMuS heard from sources at the Mercedes customer teams that the Mercedes PU is struggling, but maybe those teams think that because it‘s not superior anymore & is on equal terms.
• Helmut Marko told AMuS that they got a top aerodynamic engineer from Mercedes after they lost some engineers to Aston Martin. Mercedes plays it down by saying it was just a junior aerodynamic engineer but AMuS believes there is more to it.