The second qualifying of the Austrian GP, the most important of the weekend as it established the starting order of the Main Race, confirmed that Max Verstappen and his RB20 seem to be unbeatable on the Spielberg circuit. The three-time world champion, with a time (1:04.314) more than three and a half tenths better than the one he set the previous day in the Sprint Qualifyingtook pole position by beating 4 tenths to the first of the pursuersthe usual Lando Norris, and 5 tenths to the first Mercedes (Russell) e to the first Ferrari (Sainz).
Ferrari: SF-24 closes in on McLaren but qualifying remains disappointing
After a negative first Austrian qualifying and a Sprint race finished only in fifth and seventh place by Sainz and Leclerc, the Italian team tried to make important setup changes on both SF-24salso taking two quite different directions to be able to collect as much data as possible during the Sunday race. The qualifying times speak of an Italian car closer to the McLaren (only 1 tenth compared to 3 and a half tenths of the Sprint Qualifying) but detached by one tenth more from the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.
Although the asphalt temperatures were slightly higher today, facing the intrinsic problems of the Ferrari 2024 project, a little less for Mclaren, hopping limited the SF-24 again. Carlos Sainz took a whopping 4 tenths between turn 6 and the finish linethat is, in less than 2 km of track, divided into a tenth and a half in turn 7, another tenth in turn 9 and half a tenth in the last corner. “Unfortunately we are not good at high speed corners and at the same time we bounce, which makes our performance in that type of curve is exaggeratedly slow” – said the Spaniard in a lucid analysis after qualifying.
Sainz confirms: the skipping is a problem introduced by the Spain package
The two update packages that Ferrari brought to the track between Imola and Montmelo were meant to ensure a step forward around half a secondhowever, as previously mentioned, the latest package (not the one introduced in Imola) has not performed as the engineers of the Maranello team expected, so much so that it is still a tenth and a half away from being seen on the track, practically almost the entire value of the Spanish innovations (they were worth 0.18 seconds at Montmelo). Something that Sainz himself confirmed: “The new features work in all areas where we don’t have the hoppingthe problem is that what we gain in those points, we lose in others due to bouncing”. The load at low speeds has been increasedwith the SF-24 having therefore improved in one of the most lacking areas of the first part of the season as well as one of the objectives of the second seasonal package, but is now paying dearly for the introduction of hopping through the new fund.
“This is not ideal, but the team is pushing hard to try to understand and resolve the problem, so that we can return stronger to Silverstone” added the Madrid driver. For now, we have mainly worked on the set-up which, both in Spain and Austria, has not eliminated the important problem but has only allowed us to find a slightly better compromise in terms of performance but not ease of driving. “The changes we made between Sprint and Qualifying made the car faster but also a little more difficult to drive; now we are a little more at the limit, so much so that it was very complicated to put together a lap” – Carlos Sainz, who is very realistic about the potential of the Italian car in tomorrow’s race, stated – “It seems like we are definitely a step behind Red Bull and McLaren and I think we can only fight with Mercedes in the race.”
