«Red Bull has found something in the race»- Corriere.it

SAKHIR A mask of tension,
Fred Vasseur
he takes a long sigh before answering. We are too fragile, I’m more concerned about reliability than tire degradation. Not only what happened to Charles, we also had problems in qualifying (a flow conveyor had detached from the Monegasque’s car, ed), and we were lucky to be able to fix it. Let’s focus on that first and performance second. As before, worse than before. Ferrari goes from second to third force.

The car that was supposed to score unprecedented speed references (words of CEO Benedetto Vigna at the presentation) takes a beating in the desert, exceeding the most gloomy forecasts. A zero and a fourth place (HERE the report) in the same circuit where the one-two was celebrated twelve months ago. Carlos Sainz behind Fernando Alonso, the Frecciaverde Aston Martin struck with surgical precision to win the race of the others, this too was in the air. Other than fighting for two titles, other than a set of tires saved by sacrificing pole, the Ferrari lacked the fundamentals yesterday. To at least defend the crumbs, the two free places behind the Red Bulls, this was the plan and it didn’t work either. They were of another category – Leclerc says it and everyone repeats it —, because I’ve never seen someone you can get close to in qualifying, then give you a second per lap in the race. They found something.

The way Verstappen and Perez dominated reminded of Schumacher’s monologues, those of Hamilton with Mercedes. Max had never triumphed in Bahrain, he did so by humiliating his opponents: 38” to Alonso, 48” to Sainz. Charles’ assault on the second square, conducted with his usual skill at the start, did not last long. When the tires began to wear out – for Vasseur the high degradation caused by the set-ups, not by a structural defect of the single-seater conceived under the previous management of Mattia Binotto -, for Perez it was a joke to override him.

Then came the real troubles, the engine that shuts down on lap 39 on the Principino’s car. After a winter of reassuring declarations, reliability was under control, they repeated. Not at all, and it is very serious that after a 2022 in which failures have taken away certain victories, now the failures are returning to remove a much leaner plate, a possible podium. Still in the same area, the power unit. A gigantic grain, on first examination. Vasseur believes that the hybrid turbo V6 can be recovered, that the stop should be traced back to the electrical part. When the battery pack and control unit were replaced before the start due to a parameter anomaly. These are elements of which we have a thorough knowledge, so much so that the regulation allows the use of only two per season. Penalties are triggered from the third, a scenario that exposes Charles to concrete risks right from the next stages. He wore a gloomy expression last night: We are far away, we have to push and work. As in an eternal replay, the Ferrari that never changes.