Two races in a row on one track, in the first Corona summer 2020, this enabled Formula 1 to restart a season that, despite all the difficulties, brought it to 17 Grand Prix races. Also this week the doubles will be held at the Red Bull Ring. So that the eighth and ninth World Championship rounds are not too similar on the track with the fewest corners of all tracks, the organizers had initially considered driving counterclockwise. But that would not have been possible so quickly because of the guard rails and run-off zones, apart from the considerable additional costs.
So that the field at the Austrian Grand Prix – at least in theory – shakes differently anyway, the tire supplier Pirelli is bringing new compounds to Styria that everyone has to be prepared for. A complex procedure with an uncertain outcome. Most feared by the team that was surprisingly strong at the first edition: Ferrari.
Right, with all the worsening of the world championship to Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, there is actually still the Scuderia. The entire racing year should belong to regeneration, one can almost speak of convalescence. Because the Italian team had experienced the worst season in four decades with sixth place in the final accounts of the constructors’ championship. Hope in Maranello never dies, of course, but the sensitive Italian racing soul has sustained deep wounds. Which is why a race like last weekend’s brings confidence.
The Monegasse Charles Leclerc, who ruined the front wing early on, drove from the very back to the front in seventh place – and was voted Man of the Day. “If it weren’t for the collision on the first lap, I would classify the performance as one of my best races in Formula 1,” says Leclerc. With regard to the repetition in the same place, he only asks himself one thing: “It’s partly the result of the hard work in the factory. But partly it is certainly also due to the characteristics of the track. We have to understand what we did right in the race to have.”
Considered the greatest talent of the “next generation” in Formula 1: Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
(Photo: Andrej Isakovic/AFP)
Team mate Carlos Sainz junior, still new to the team, drove the SF 21 to sixth place. With a total of 14 points as the latest weekend haul, Ferrari is fourth in the team standings, only twelve points behind McLaren. The English dinosaur who had gone through disastrous times like Ferrari in recent years – and is now on the way to the top under German team boss Andreas Seidl. Third place is practically the championship of the second division in Formula 1.
A radical cut at the top of the racing team as with McLaren has so far not taken place at Ferrari, but something has changed nonetheless. Mattia Binotto, 51, who tried his hand at team and technology boss in personal union, is shifting more to management. At the racetrack, Laurent Mekies, who is seven years younger, is moving more and more into focus. As a sports director and therefore operations manager, the Frenchman is apparently driving a lot in the right direction. Nevertheless, the hybrid car for the transition year is still sometimes reminiscent of that lucky bag that had so many unpleasant surprises in store for Sebastian Vettel when he said goodbye in red.
A lot depends on the tires: spin once and everything can be gone
In fact, a lot, often everything in Formula 1, depends on how much the car and driver can adjust to the tires. And how much the tires reward the effort the engineers make. The most difficult thing for the drivers, however, is to find the compromise line between their own ambition, a chance in the race and the required careful handling of the rubbers. Go crazy once, literally, and everything can be gone.
The Styrian Grand Prix serves not only as a sporting indicator, but also as a mood barometer at Ferrari. For both drivers, the result was a boost in motivation after the pointless debacle in France shortly before: “It was my most complete race for Ferrari so far,” says Sainz, who at times drove at the level of Red Bull and Mercedes.
The 26-year-old was most impressed by the rapid processing of the Le Castellet disaster: “On Sunday evening, the team pooled all its strengths, devised new strategies and then set up a short, medium and long-term plan in each individual department.” The Spaniard, who moved especially close to the Italian racing factory, has now arrived: “To see that, to feel the unity, was my first real experience as a Ferrari driver.”
The basically better feeling outweighs the 23-year-old Leclerc, who, along with Max Verstappen and George Russell, is still considered the greatest talent of the “next generation” in Formula 1: “It was always going forward. I don’t even have my rear-view mirrors I had to pull through some overtaking maneuvers that were at the limit. But I had to take risks to make up places quickly. ” That almost sounds like a hopeful stage direction for the rest of the year. Team boss Binotto, trained in optimism and experienced in doubts, does not want to concentrate on third place in the World Cup yet. He even claims: “This is not important to us at all. Our goal is to make progress for the coming year and to learn from our mistakes.”
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