As the saying goes, in Formula 1 you are only as good as your last race. Charles Leclerc’s triumph in Monaco has been forgotten after two disappointing Grands Prix from Ferrari. Leclerc’s deficit to championship leader Max Verstappen has more than doubled and he has lost second place in the World Championship to Lando Norris. Nevertheless, the Scuderia does not want to face a crisis.
“I don’t think the problems in Montreal and Barcelona were the same, so in my opinion that’s not a trend,” said Leclerc on Thursday before the Austrian GP. Although he and Carlos Sainz are well aware of the now obvious shortcomings of the SF-24 and warn that Barcelona only made them more obvious.
Ferrari has already put the weekend in Canada, where they didn’t even make it into Q3, behind them. “I think we’re very clear about what went wrong there, it was more to do with the tires,” says Leclerc. “With the tires and the conditions, we were a little outside our working window.” That shouldn’t happen again at the next cool, damp race.
Leclerc & Sainz explain Ferrari’s problem corners
Barcelona is completely different. “It was the raw pace and we were simply slower than expected,” is Leclerc’s sober conclusion. Although Ferrari also made updates there, to the sidepod and the front underbody area. Sainz swears: “Based on all our numbers, the new package works.”
The problem is that the Barcelona package was just a natural evolution of the car, and not meant to eliminate a fundamental weakness. Leclerc and Sainz point to the characteristics of the track in this regard. “It was our worst track in terms of performance last year,” said Sainz. “I just hope that it is still our problem track.”
According to Leclerc, the Ferrari only lost time in two corners – five and ten. The two slow, very long corners. This is a fundamental problem in the car. Not on all tracks are these corners such isolated key points as in Barcelona, or even present at all. Hence the confidence that the problem should fade into the background again in Austria.
Sainz describes bouncing problem in Ferrari 2024
Sainz expanded the list of problems after Barcelona – he also complained about fast, long corners. This is not about the basic vehicle balance: “I’m not a fan of this possible small bouncing that we have in these corners.”
Sainz feels pressured to get the bouncing out of the car with the setup: “We could perhaps go through high-speed corners almost as fast as a Red Bull or McLaren, but I don’t like what this bouncing does to the tires on qualifying laps and in the race. It’s potentially a smaller weakness than the medium and slow corners, but still a weakness that we need to address.”
These problems have all been around for months, says Sainz, pointing to races like China, which included similar corners and where Ferrari had similar difficulties: “It just shows that even with the upgrades, there are certain characteristics that you can’t just get rid of with a simple upgrade.”
According to Leclerc, the team has nevertheless made progress in working on these areas. Either way, the problem should now take a back seat. “The preparations in the simulator went well and I am confident that we will be up there again,” said Leclerc, looking ahead to the Austrian GP. And in the past, Ferrari has often been able to shine with good setups and preparations on the restrictive sprint weekends.
Positive news for the Scuderia – a dispute between Leclerc and Sainz that broke out shortly after the race in Barcelona has now been resolved. The drivers themselves have taken matters into their own hands. Read more here: