Ferrari continues to be looking for solutions on whether or not its newest ground upgrades have turned its 2024 Components 1 season round till heading to higher-downforce circuits.
The Italian squad introduced a brand new ground to June’s Barcelona spherical that induced bouncing issues in high-speed corners, which meant it needed to revert to an older specification earlier than making use of some momentary fixes to mitigate the issue, seeing it slip down the pecking order.
In Monza Ferrari launched its newest ground specification, which did seem to work as desired, with the squad within the combine on the entrance and Charles Leclerc even making a one-stop technique work to defeat the McLarens and take an emotional win on Italian soil for the Scuderia.
“It’s fairly obscure the impression of the improve on a observe like Monza, as a result of we’re in such a unique configuration in comparison with the remainder of the season,” Ferrari workforce boss Fred Vasseur mentioned.
“However on the finish of the day, once you see the qualifying and you’ve got six automobiles in lower than one-tenth [two-tenths actually], each single bit makes the distinction.”
However crucially, the true take a look at of whether or not the brand new Ferrari ground has eradicated high-speed bouncing will come on tracks with longer and quicker high-downforce corners.
Monza did not function these, and neither do the upcoming road circuits of Baku and Singapore, so a definitive reply will not come earlier than Austin’s US Grand Prix in mid-October.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures
“We might want to look forward to extra regular tracks to see if this improve has actually turned our season round and we will combat for wins any further or we’re going to return to what we noticed in Zandvoort,” mentioned Carlos Sainz, who completed off the rostrum in fourth.
“I am actually undecided. We want extra samples on this new ground and we have to go to extra regular tracks. I suppose the subsequent regular one is Austin as a result of those developing are very specific, Baku and Singapore. Austin will inform us how good we’re with this new ground.”
“In Baku there’s not one single high-speed nook or medium-speed nook, it is all low-speed, very specific like Singapore. So I feel we aren’t going to see how a lot we have improved the automobile in high-speed to medium-speed corners.”
Leclerc was cautious too, feeling McLaren and Crimson Bull will nonetheless be a step forward on extra downforce dependent layouts.
“The improve positively introduced us nearer to McLaren, however I do not suppose it is sufficient to be the automobile to beat for the remainder of the season on different tracks,” he mentioned.
“Singapore perhaps could possibly be a powerful observe for us. On the opposite tracks, I nonetheless really feel like we’re a step behind McLaren and Crimson Bull. However we have seen that we might be very on a par with McLaren if we do every thing good.
“We have achieved some steps ahead. I feel we’d like some others.”
