How Ferrari strategy won the race (for runner-up) in Abu Dhabi

Why the fastest car doesn't always win: Sergio Perez missed out on runner-up spot in the F1 drivers' championship when Ferrari pulled out the superior strategy

Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

On his way to second place in the championship: Leclerc at Abu Dhabi

Ferrari

Red Bull looked to be in the perfect position to clinch a 1-2 in this year’s F1 drivers’ championship, with a front-row lockout for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the fastest car around the Yas Marina circuit.

Sergio Perez had to finish ahead of Charles Leclerc to prevail but, come the end of the race, it was the Ferrari driver who finished behind Max Verstappen and secured the runner-up spot in the title race.

Perez said that he needed to have pushed harder which would have helped, considering he was only 1.3sec behind Leclerc at the flag, but that wasn’t the root of the issue.

Look at the data and the Mexican had sensational pace. But Red Bull was hedging its bets on strategy and, for once, Ferrari’s focused pitwall came out on top.

 

Two stops looked the way to go

Chart 1 Tyre Strategy Summary

22 Abu Dhabi GP tyre strategy

One stop or two stop? This was the question that Perez and the Red Bull pitwall had to grapple with in their battle with Leclerc.

Chart 1 above shows the tyre strategies pursued by each team, underneath the four recommended by Pirelli. The tyre manufacturer’s approach favoured two stops, and that was followed by most of the field, including Perez and Red Bull.

But the finishing order shows that the one-stop worked for the top two. Perhaps this is not so surprising given the challenge in overtaking at the Yas Marina circuit alongside the added risk from making an additional stop.

A one-stop strategy is not without its downsides though – with tyre degradation being the number one concern. Such a concern was one that affected many on the grid, including Red Bull.

 

Perez plan quickly goes awry

Chart 2 Medium tyre degradation profile

22 Abu Dhabi GP tyre degradation

By stripping out the effect of the reducing fuel load, we can see the effect of tyre degradation on each drivers’ laptime.

Initially, Perez’s degradation profile was superior to that of Leclerc and even on par with team-mate Verstappen for a few laps. But this pattern reversed at around lap 9 as Perez started to experience graining, where the surface of the tyre tears. Leclerc’s pace continued on its earlier trend.

Perez’s pace began to deviate significantly from Verstappen’s, so Red Bull pulled the cord early and opted to switch to the hard tyre at the end of lap 15.

While this helped stem the bleeding from the first stint, Perez had the long and arduous task of fighting off Leclerc who had been able to extend his stint to the end of lap 21, while lapping at a faster rate than race leader Verstappen.

Leclerc therefore had tyres that were six laps fresher, offering some advantage if both cars were going to remain out on a one-stop strategy.

 

2022 Abu Dhabi GP story

Chart 3 Cumulative delta plot

22 Abu Dhabi GP cumulative delta

Unsurprisingly, Perez held on to his position after his first stop, pulling out a greater gap over Leclerc as he ran in clean air with fresh tyres.

The cumulative delta chart above shows each driver’s average lap time, updated each lap as the race goes on, and set against a 1min 32sec benchmark.

You can see how Perez, represented by a solid pink line, had a small gap over Leclerc — the dotted red line — when he pitted, causing his average lap time line to plummet.

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The gap is noticeably bigger when Leclerc emerges. However, there’s not much space between Perez and Verstappen, shown by the dotted pink line, once the world champion has pitted. Verstappen remains ahead and Perez doesn’t have clean air any more. At this point, Red Bull is clear that Verstappen is on a one-stop strategy, but less certain of Perez’s route to the flag.

Comparing Perez’s first stint length against the recommended strategies from Pirelli would lead you to believe that Perez was headed for a two-stop.

If that was the case then it would have been sensible to have him take the lead of the race and set lap times in clean air while Verstappen focused on tyre management. Perez’s trace tracks that of Verstappen in Chart 3, suggesting he was being held up. Allowing him past would have given Perez the best set-up to make up enough time to compensate for the time cost of making a second stop.

However, a one-stop race was still a possibility for Perez. it’s thought that Red Bull were reluctant to orchestrate a position swap, which could have resulted in Verstappen losing the race to Perez if neither car pitted again.

So Perez held station. Perhaps this would have been inconsequential had Perez not pitted so much earlier than his teammate or Leclerc. But the tyre offset was enough for Leclerc to close the gap to Perez by lap 32 as shown in Chart 3.

By this point Red Bull was forced to shift to a two-stop, as committing to the one-stop would only risk Perez falling back further, potentially losing position to Sainz (if the Ferrari driver also went for a miraculous one-stop).

It was also given encouragement by a radio call to Leclerc — later revealed to be a dummy — that suggested Ferrari was looking to pit its driver and pass Perez using the undercut.

Switching to the two-stop gave Perez the option to attack Leclerc and potentially invited a situation where Leclerc failed to avoid the tyre cliff due to the long second stint.

 

Perez puts the hammer down

Chart 4 Trend race pace comparison

22 Abu Dhabi GP smoothed lap times

With a new set of tyres, Perez moved to the offensive, as shown in the dramatic pace differential to Leclerc shown in Chart 4 above. It charts smoothed lap times to reduce the effect of anomalies.

Perez was lapping at least 0.5sec a lap faster than Leclerc for the remainder of the final stint, which is a big difference compared to the earlier part of the race, where Perez was only faster than Leclerc from the start of the race to lap 10 and from laps 16 to 22.

Much of this is a consequence of the indecision of committing to the two-stop strategy. The poor degradation and resultant short first stint on the medium tyre, especially compared to peers should have been an invitation to go hard on the second stint. But the desire to avoid the extra stop ultimately left Red Bull between an Italian rock and a hard place.

While Perez’s pace was impressive, he fell just shy of challenging Leclerc by the end of the race, as shown in Chart 3.

Allowing for the benefit of fuel burn, Perez’s pace on the 3rd stint is somewhat of a representation of the potential pace he could have unlocked in the second stint, had Red Bull committed early for the 2-stop, reducing the need for tyre conservation.

 

The hare and the tortoise

Chart 5 Overall race pace compared

Abu Dhabi GP 22 average race pace

Not convinced? Well, Chart 5 provides a powerful summation. Perez had sensational pace across the entirety of the race, especially relative to Leclerc. But the advantage wasn’t enough to offset the impact of the additional stop.

This race serves as another example of how having the fastest car simply isn’t enough if your team doesn’t get the strategy right.

It’s an area where Red Bull has excelled in 2022, but Leclerc and Ferrari had the better combination of factors in Abu Dhabi, and did well to take out P2 in the driver’s championship.


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