Charles Leclerc said he was surprised Mercedes comfortably out-paced Ferrari in Friday practice at Suzuka.
Mercedes finished both sessions in first and second places. Leclerc was the quicker of the two Ferrari drivers after second practice but was more than three-tenths of a second behind pace-setter Valtteri Bottas.While Leclerc admitted Ferrari hadn’t completed its run plan, he said “we made the most out of our day which was the most important.”
“But it seems we are lacking pace this weekend,” he added, “which is a bit of a surprise because at the end we were very strong in the last four races.
“We expected to be quite quite good here nut it’s just [not] the case. But we will be working to prepare at its best to qualifying on Sunday.”
Leclerc said he car’s balance is “not that bad actually, so we are just lacking speed.
“There’s a little bit in driving too, I’m not driving very well. But I still expect it to be hard to catch Mercedes in front.”
Leclerc’s team mate Sebastian Vettel is also wary of the threat from Red Bull this weekend.
“There is a bit more in the car but you need to be honest and Mercedes look very quick every time they went out,” said Vettel. “Plus it looked a bit more comfortable for Red Bull as well here so it will be tight and I expect them both to be very strong on Sunday morning as well.”
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NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
11th October 2019, 10:57
What is the surprise? Mercedes said they expect Ferrari to be fastest in Suzuka. Those are just code words, translated to easy Mercedes 1-2.
F1oSaurus (@)
11th October 2019, 11:38
Yawn
ian dearing
11th October 2019, 11:38
Ferrari expected Ferrari to be faster too. Maybe they are in cohorts with Mercedes to fool us all?
grat
12th October 2019, 8:21
You gotta pity these people… they’ve been so bamboozled that no matter what happens, they desperately cling to the belief that Mercedes is sandbagging.
I mean, Mercedes *lost* 4 of the last 6 races– but they’re just sandbagging! Ferrari has had 4 poles in a row… Must be because Mercedes is sandbagging.
Everyone’s been saying the Ferrari’s the faster car, since winter testing… but Mercedes must be sandbagging! Ferrari, Mercedes, and everyone else was confused by Ferrari’s lack of pace in Australia… Because Mercedes was sandbagging again!
It’s entertaining as hell, actually– Toto Wolff has probably been the most honest F1 team principal in years– but no one believes anything he says.
AliceD (@aliced)
11th October 2019, 12:12
Mercedes turned up their engine again, wonder exactly how much they have kept in reserve, I don’t think we will ever know.
ADUB SMALLBLOCK (@waptraveler)
11th October 2019, 14:45
Guess that is why Mercedes has been out-qualified so many times in the second half of the season, and lost races, just forgot to turn the engine up? “Oh, dang, did we forget again”?
Dean
11th October 2019, 15:39
Don’t think they “forgot”. They had issues with the most recent engine update and that coincided with Ferraris upturn in fortunes. Probably a coincidence but its a good possibility that Merc have just been careful until they know they can run at full tilt without any issues.
asherway (@asherway)
11th October 2019, 19:02
They didn’t forget anything, rather they remembered they’d just won 10/12 races and thought, hey maybe we shouldn’t show just how dominant we really are…
mystic one (@mysticus)
11th October 2019, 19:12
it is possible merc just turned down their engines due to concerns or possibly letting ferrari have a false sense of security/comfort to not stop them from developing this years engine while they, mercedes started 2020/21 reg cars well in advance… letting them, competitors think mercedes have been caught may slow their developments, and come the next season we will surely know… when merc/ham wins manufacturers/drivers champs, they tend to relax their horses…
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
11th October 2019, 22:33
Merc have ran very few laps on high power, in hungary q3 they gained .500 just in the 1st sector.
anon
11th October 2019, 22:27
@aliced, from the onboard footage and the timing data, it’s nothing to do with “Mercedes turned up their engine again”. What is really costing Ferrari a lot of time is their performance through the higher speed corners, where their entry and apex speed is not only worse than Mercedes, it’s quite a bit worse than Red Bull are too (Ferrari are actually closer to McLaren and the midfield pack than they are to Red Bull, let alone Mercedes).
Through the fast S curves in the first sector, for example, you can see that Leclerc had to shed more speed and wait for the front of the car to respond – he can’t smoothly build speed through the corner, but has to keep backing off the throttle because the front end begins to wash wide of the apex. By comparison, when you look at, say, Bottas, he’s able to progressively build speed through the higher speed corners in a way that Leclerc couldn’t match.
You can also see another trend through areas such as the Degner corners – on the entry into Degner 1, Leclerc was having to brake about 20-30m earlier than Bottas did and had to slow down about 10-15kph more at the apex of the corner than Bottas did. Equally, Leclerc was again having to brake much earlier on the entry into Degner 2 than Bottas was, even if the final apex speed was more similar (Ferrari being closer to the pace through the medium speed corners).
It’s not on power that Ferrari are falling behind – Ferrari are faster than Mercedes when it comes to the power limited sections of the track. It is on braking performance, corner entry speed and mid-corner stability where Mercedes are pulling ahead of Ferrari – those factors strongly show that it is chassis performance that is the differentiator, with Ferrari held back by the poor handling balance of their car.
grat
12th October 2019, 8:24
Ssssh! You’re bringing facts and logic into an argument that’s based solely on a misguided belief that Toto is a lying shill.
Ferrari has more top end power. They have less drag. This means they’re better in the straights, and recently, they’ve been pretty good in the corners. Now Mercedes has cleaned up some of the issues that was costing them mechanical grip, and the tables have tilted a bit towards the 3 pointed star again, in spite of their lower top HP, and their high coefficient of drag.
joe jopling (@jop452)
11th October 2019, 15:18
I just wondered as Ferrari have possibly had the fastest engine, if after the last race, when Vettel had to stop quickly, they maybe have sacrificed reliability to be quick, and possibly they cannot turn the engine up now…Any thoughts out there??
Dean
11th October 2019, 15:41
Good shout. Think there’s a bit of that combined with Merc now being happy they can run there most recent PU upgrade at full tilt without any issues.
Dean
11th October 2019, 15:42
“….THIER most recent PU…”
DAllein (@)
11th October 2019, 19:45
At one moment during FP2 on Sky they were talking about something that GPS traces for Ferrari’s cars not showing usage of their “jet” mode.
Any info if they actually used it closer to the end?
Considering they came closer on their last fats-lap attempt, probably – yes, but did anyone else hear about this?