After the Imola Charles Grand Prix Leclerc he declared that he and his engineers noticed an evidently aggressive or particular use of the power of the Power Unit by Red Bull and McLaren in the “launch” phase in qualifying. “[Dopo la qualifica] I didn’t know where the time in sector 1 was coming from. Looking back at the data, there is something that Red Bull and McLaren are doing strange with their engine strategyso we lose everything only in the starting straight” Leclerc said to Sky Italia microphones and also to foreign journalists he mentioned something to improve in “Launch” in qualifying, i.e. precisely in the way in which the Ferrari he launches onto the main straight at the start of the lap.
The Red Bull advantage at the start of the lap is nothing new
At first glance the thing that surprised us the most is that this topic is only emerging now, given that we have been seeing this in the data for a very long time. However, there are some “historical” considerations that we have always taken into account: on the one hand, Ferrari has always given more importance to the traction phase than to the extension phase in managing the hybrid part. This is because the traction phase produces a greater difference in lap time, and because at very high speeds the efficiency of the electrical part generally decreases considerably. For these reasons we have always seen a certain marked clipping on Maranello’s drive units, where the preference was to unload the hybrid part in advance (obviously when the rear allowed all the horses to be put to the ground) and cut it in the final part. Honda (or ex-Honda) units have always shown a decidedly wider spectrum of power output, with the acceleration curve remaining high even in the maximum speed zones, and a generally higher resulting maximum speed. Added to this is the fact that in the last 3 seasons the single-seaters brought to the track by the Milton Keynes team have always enjoyed extraordinary aerodynamic efficiency, which stood out even more when the DRS was open, a typical condition of the starting straight of every track. For these reasons we have always classified it as a difference that is not so anomalous, but Leclerc’s words pushed us to investigate.
Analysis methodology
We have therefore taken the data from the 7 qualifying sessions held so far (excluding the Sprints for brevity) and in them we have isolated the performances of the following cars:
- The best Red Bull (always Verstappen, given the 7 poles)
- The best Ferrari
- The best McLaren
- The best Mercedes (in order to have a comparison of the Mercedes PU with the McLaren)
- The best RB Visa Cash App (to have a comparison on PU Honda with Red Bull)
- The best Haas or Kick Sauber (in order to have a comparison on the PU Ferrari with Ferrari)
We therefore kept the performance of Verstappen and his Red Bull as a reference and calculated the gap of the others in chronometric terms at the moment of the first braking point. In addition to this, we also recorded the maximum speeds reached on the starting straight during the launch phase. Below are the results obtained from the study.
Results: Red Bull always dominates in the pure acceleration phase
The results were somewhat surprising, as, from the historical considerations cited above, we had always considered the Ferrari deficiency at the start of the lap as something physiological and more related to the performance of the red car than to an actual extra performance from the Red Bull. However, the numbers show, in a practically unequivocal way, a clear dominance of Verstappen and the RB20 in this discipline which effectively consists of a “drag race” from the finish line to the first corner. An advantage that reoccurs in practically every race and compared to all the cars considered both in terms of time and in terms of maximum speed, with only a few minimal exceptions probably due to some coincidence. The two tracks where this effect was greatest were those of Imola, obviously also thanks to Hulkenberg’s great wake, and the first race in Bahrain, where the delay of the competition even came close to two tenths. In Saudi Arabia, Australia and Japan the other cars were around half a tenth behind, with the exception of Hulkenberg’s Haas in Suzuka, which was almost 70 thousandths faster, probably due to a slipstream caught by the German driver in the its lap, also given the much higher maximum speed than all the others.
The peculiarities of Shanghai and Miami
Particular situation instead in China and from You love me, where the differences were very minimal. If we analyze these two tracks we notice that they have a common characteristic, namely that you enter the pit straight from medium or high speed corners, and therefore not with a pure traction phase. In Shanghai the last corner is tackled by taking the foot off the accelerator significantly, while in Miami the last stretch is taken full on, but still in a fairly pronounced curve. In our opinion, this peculiarity shows how the difference is precisely of a motor-mechanical nature and not (only) of an aerodynamic nature. The curves before the last straight prevent, for example, from using very aggressive calibrations of the differential, unlike other tracks where you can exit the last curve and fully unload the power with straight wheels, and the launch performance is only , as they say in jargon, “power limited”. In all this there is obviously the contradiction that the VCARBs are aligned with the performance of the competition and not with those of the parent company, despite the fact that they share the Power Unit and this leads us to formulate two hypotheses, one is that Red Bull keeps itself available some mapping of the hybrid part of the particularly aggressive Power Unit, which perhaps he does not share with the Faenza team. The second is that there is a mechanical difference, both in suspension, but also in the calibration of elements such as the aforementioned differential which guarantee a further option to the Milton Keynes team. We believe it is a plausible conclusion that in reality a combination of the two things occurs, remembering that one of the strong points of the last 3 cars put on track by Red Bull has always been the traction force.
McLaren’s improvement
From the data we also notice a clear improvement of McLaren in this phase, it went from regularly being among the worst at the beginning of the season, to being consistently first or second force from Shanghai onwards, both in terms of times and maximum speed. Given that the MCL38 reached the RB20 on the tracks of Shanghai and Miami, the impression is that for the Woking team the improvement is, instead, precisely in terms of aerodynamic efficiency, a parameter whose increase on Norris’ cars and Piastri we have widely noticed in the last few races. However, it is not certain that there isn’t a motor-mechanical component for the Woking team too, given the performance in Imola, but it is an aspect on which we will need further confirmation in the next races.
In conclusion, the data shows a clear predominance of Red Bull in the launch phase compared to the competition, with the Milton Keynes team, always careful to maximize every detail, which seems to have implemented a strategy between the drive unit and mechanics of the single-seater capable of to guarantee him a slight advantage right from the start of the lap. If the gaps seen on the track until a few races ago, however, made this component irrelevant, the convergence of performance between Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari means that every small aspect can make a difference on the entire progress of the race weekends. We will see from the next races (the Canadian track will be perfect in this sense) whether in Woking they will confirm that they also have a dedicated strategy and what countermeasures will be implemented in Maranello.
