Leclerc plays down impact of Ferrari updates in Spain

Charles Leclerc doesn’t expect the updates implemented by Ferrari at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix to deliver a significant performance boost to the Scuderia's SF-23.

Ferrari's performance this season has fallen short of the team's expectations, with the House of Maranello's prancing horse proving to be no match for Red Bull's dominant RB19.

Unlike Mercedes, Scuderia boss Fred Vasseur has dismissed an in-season change of concept for its contender.

However, a change of development direction is forthcoming in the Italian outfit's camp, and this will likely be visible as early as this weekend in Barcelona where Ferrari is expected to unveil a major design change in the sidepod and floor area of its SF-23, with the adoption of a Red Bull downwash style sidepod element.

The change of direction could be part of the Scuderia's efforts to iron out the "peakiness" and lack of consistency of its machine, especially in qualifying trim, while also addressing its chronic tyre degradation issues.

However, Leclerc isn't expecting "any big miracles, to be honest".

"From now on, we want to try and bring some small upgrades every race," the Monegasque said in Barcelona on Thursday.

"This one should go in the right direction. But I don't think it will be a massive change.

Read also:

• Vasseur: Still 'big room for improvement' for Ferrari SF-23

"At the moment, the thing is that we have extremely peaky car that in qualifying, on the one lap pace with new tyres, and with the wind that we know exactly how we need to drive the car, it's okay," he explained.

"But as soon as we go a little bit out of those conditions, the car loses so much downforce overall. So, we have been working a lot on that with this new car.

"This should help us to not gain that much performance, but to at least be a bit more consistent throughout the weekend. That hopefully will help us to have a better result on the Sunday."

Addressing Ferrari's development programme, Vasseur said the team was pulling out the stops back in Maranello to bring forward the updates that are in the outfit's pipeline in a bid to improve the squad's results sooner rather than later.

"We are pushing like hell at the factory to bring an update as quick as possible because we are not happy," said the Frenchman.

"I think the results we have today are not the target and we want to do better. We will continue to develop in any case."

Howver, Vasseur also underscored the fact that Ferrari's overall performance gains were not limited to just improving the aero efficiency of its car.

"It would be a mistake to imagine the lack of performance is coming from just the [aero]," he continued.

"Performance is coming from everywhere: the capacity to produce parts quickly, the strategy, the pit wall, the mechanics, the pitstops, the reliability.

"Every single employee of the company is a performance contributor."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter