WEEKEND ANALYSIS: Setup versus strategy in Barcelona

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is one of the most punishing tracks on the FIA Formula 3 calendar for the tyres. The long, sweeping right-handers that make up a significant part of the lap means the front left tyre in particular suffers a lot, especially over a race stint.

That’s what we saw play out across the weekend, with the drivers having to manage battling against their rivals whilst keeping the Hard compound tyres in decent shape, trying to avoid losing spots near the end.

For Théophile Nael, he gave himself the best possible chance by virtue of qualifying on Pole Position on Friday and then retaining that advantage into Turn 1 on Sunday in the Feature Race.

Others used up the best of their rubber early on and had to defend late on whilst those with more tyre life came back to haunt them.

SETUP DIFFERENCES KEY

Nael’s opening laps were not without risk. While he managed to keep Hiyu Yamakoshi at bay off the line into the first corner, the Van Amersfoort Racing driver kept within touching distance and most importantly, in DRS range.

While that gave the chasing driver a theoretical advantage, it didn’t quite play out that way. Nael was consistently quicker than the VAR behind him in the opening sector with clean air.

The Frenchman was in the 27-second range in the opening third of the lap while Yamakoshi made the difference in the twisty sector three, lapping between 0.1s and 0.3s quicker than the Campos driver in the final section of the circuit.

In the middle sector, it was a bit more back and forth between the pair, as the Japanese driver attempted to chase down P1. The sectors were nip and tuck, but overall, they were slightly in favour of Nael, who kept pace at Turns 4 through 9.

It was enough that in the second DRS zone and under braking for Turn 10, he was comfortably far enough clear that no real overtake was on for his pursuer.

Yamakoshi was able to remain within DRS range through the final corners, but the apparent setup differences meant that Nael wasn’t under huge threat down the start/finish straight, with the speed trap indicating a top speed advantage in favour of the Campos every tour in all but one of the final 10 laps.

It turned out to be, combined with Nael’s clean drive from pole, enough to give Campos another win on home soil, and to put the Frenchman within striking distance of teammate Ugo Ugochukwu in the Championship.

Having had to wait until Round 3 to win despite pole in the previous two weekends, Nael now sits just six points adrift of his teammate and is now second in the Standings.

QUALIFYING CONUNDRUM

In the Qualifying half hour, the majority of the pack headed out at the ideal moment formulated by the race engineers to make use of peak track conditions, and theoretically, the best moment to set a laptime.

Not everyone opted for the same strategy, however. The logic in going out onto circuit with most of the field is that all things being equal, there should be no advantage or disadvantage for those setting fast laps around the same time.

That brings plus points and drawbacks. The track conditions are obviously at their peak, with many teams finding a specific window that is the best time to get out there for the final flying laps.

However, because of that, it makes the need for clean air all that more important and traffic then becomes a big problem.

We saw that with ART Grand Prix’s Maciej Gladysz, in his desperation to find some clear track dipped his right-side tyres into the grass out of Turn 12 to get ahead of rivals around him.

Ultimately, that didn’t help the Polish driver, as he failed to improve on his final attempt, but he wasn’t alone.

On the other side of the coin, TRIDENT opted to run Freddie Slater slightly offset to the rest of the pack for his final run, something the Italian team has done in the past to great effect.

However, it didn’t work out for the Briton on this occasion, as he wound up 10th on the Feature Race grid, down on where he’d have hoped to be.

Spielberg will be another tough test for the teams on Friday, with the short lap meaning clean air and track position will be critical.

Slipstream on the three straights around the Red Bull Ring is an enticing proposition, but catching the car ahead in the final sector can wreck a qualifying lap too.

Which way will teams go next time out in Round 4?