Formula 1 arrives at the splendid Suzuka circuit and gives us a first day full of insights, although, it must be said, not always exciting. In general terms, much as expected, Honda’s home track, super technical and always interesting, has also highlighted the difficulties of these new cars, partly due to lack of downforce in the first sector, but especially for the many sections where power is lacking and braking is decidedly less aggressive than it is beautiful to see, not to mention, of course, the slowdown of almost 60 km/h in the passage through the famous 130R. In the hope that during the long break following the Japanese Grand Prix interventions will be planned to minimize these critical issues, let’s focus on the values on track, because there are elements of objective interest.
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Has McLaren found the Power Unit instructions? Some caveats
Seeing Piastri at the top of the standings immediately raises the question of whether the Woking team has finally understood how to best exploit the Mercedes power unit and the impression is that on a single lap the progress made by the engineers led by Andrea Stella is remarkable.
Looking at the data we see first of all a truly explosive power of the MCL40 in the first straight, where Piastri makes a huge difference over everyone. Overall we saw throughout the session a papaya car able to squeeze the energy best especially in the section that goes from the last chicane to the first corner, although split in two between the beginning and end of the lap. The gap opened by Piastri over Antonelli, first of the two Mercedes, at the exit of turn 1-2 is even about four tenths, with Mercedes itself showing instead a very conservative attitude in the first acceleration for the entire session. From the entrance of the “Snake” section onwards it is Antonelli who recovers the gap immediately, until almost closing it at the hairpin. In the slow turn 11 and then in the section up to Spoon it is the Australian who accelerates again, showing good traction from his car. The huge recovery in the long back straight is not enough for Antonelli to grab first place because once again, at the exit of the triangle chicane, McLaren shows better performance, with Piastri closing ahead precisely thanks to the tenth found in the final acceleration. McLaren overall shows remarkable progress in energy management and understanding of the Power Unit, although it exploits it in a very different way compared to Mercedes. Piastri appeared particularly in form, as he hasn’t been seen in quite some time, but it cannot be said that the technical difficulties have vanished like magic in the McLaren garage, with World Champion Norris who had to give up about half the session due to major problems with the power unit. McLaren’s solidity seemed to wane, at least in part, on the race pace front and this is further confirmation of the work on the Mercedes Power Unit, which indeed opens the gap with rivals especially in qualifying sessions.
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Mercedes already dialed in on setup, to optimize on the energy front
Who certainly got off on the right foot was Mercedes, which appeared already in its ideal operating window from the point of view of the overall car setup. You can see well from the data how in the snake section Antonelli’s pace is unstoppable for the opponents, all aided by very high levels of torque at delicate points, such as the entrance to turn 3 or the climb of turn 7, up to the acceleration before Spoon. Then evident the Mercedes advantage in the return straight with the highest top speed (331) and the speed at the braking of the last chicane still higher (278), proof of the usual advantage in the super clipping phase. Missing for now on the Brackley side a release of energy superior to the opponents in the main straight, we’ll see if this will be something that changes ahead of qualifying.
Ferrari in difficulty: missing the engine and the balance is not optimal, but you can fight on race pace
Who apparently seems to have taken a step back compared to the last races is the Cavallino team. The setup brought to the track on the SF-26 has not proven up to the rivals. The rear of the car is unstable for the entire session and this compromised performance even in the purely chassis sections where the red car hoped to prevail. In the snake Leclerc’s performance is similar to that of McLaren but decidedly inferior to that of Mercedes, although the biggest blow of the latter is precisely at turn 7 on the climb. In the central section of the track Leclerc recovers and gets close to Piastri at the hairpin, but from there on the great criticality of the red car emerges on the Power Unit issue, with about half a second left on track by the Monegasque compared to Piastri in all the subsequent section of pure power. Looking at the repetition of the passages the impression is of a notable lack of thrust from the red car’s engine, which this time combines with a basic balance certainly not optimal, opening the gap up to the 7-8 tenths seen on track. The impression is also of excessive aggressiveness of the SF-26 on the soft tire, which led the Ferrari duo to struggle with overheating of the soft compounds marked on a single lap, which appeared much more manageable on the medium and hard compounds in race pace regime. The margin on the setup side to improve is there, and the objective of Leclerc and Hamilton is certainly to confirm themselves as the second force, ahead of McLaren, at least as far as race pace is concerned, since on a single lap it doesn’t seem entirely simple for the SF-26 to keep up with McLaren, a situation that appeared much more favorable instead in the brief pace simulation carried out. We’ll see therefore if McLaren will try to contest a front row spot with Mercedes, and who between Antonelli and Russell will be Wolff’s first standard bearer this weekend. On the other hand it will be interesting to note from the third free practice onwards if Ferrari will have found a better setup that allows it to overtake the McLaren duo.
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