Carlos Sainz believes that fully optimizing Ferrari's latest upgrades won't address its F1 car’s specific weakness, a limitation he argues that is inherent to the SF-24’s design.
Ferrari currently sits second in Formula 1’s Constructors’ Championship, 60 points behind leader Red Bull. But the Italian outfit’s strong momentum in the first part of the season, validated by Sainz’s win in Australia and Charles Leclerc’s home triumph in Monaco, has waned in the past two races.
The Scuderia failed to put a single point on the board in Montreal, while its drivers were comprehensively outpaced by their direct rivals in Barcelona.
According to Sainz, the Circuit de Catalunya layout highlighted once again the SF-24’s difficulties in tackling medium-speed long corners, a core weakness suffered by Ferrari’s contender, even despite the upgrades implemented on the latter in Spain.
As Sainz emphasized, while the package functioned as intended, it could not overcome the main trait hindering the SF-24’s performance.
“From all of our numbers, the new package worked, so it just shows that whatever we’ve brought to the car over the last couple of years, and the new car that we’ve brought this year, is still not perfectly suited for these long, combined corners that I’ve always been relatively vocal about,” he explained.
“If you remember China and Suzuka, I told you before those tracks that I don’t think this is going to be a great track for the Ferrari, and it’s still the case.”
“It just shows that even if the upgrades work, there are certain characteristics that you cannot solve with a simple upgrade.
“And we need to work on the whole package to become more competitive in these kind of tracks.”
©Ferrari
Sainz also singled another negative trait that he believes must be ironed out: the presence of the bouncing phenomenon in high-speed corners which he believes wreaks havoc on the SF-24’s tyres.
“I agree with Charles that our main problem is combined, medium-speed and low-speed corners,” he continued.
“I do still think that high-speed remains a weakness of the car, just because I’m not a big fan of what the potential little bouncing that we have in the corners might do to the tyre.
“So even if it might not be affecting us in terms of a high-speed corner speed – we can maybe make a high-speed corner almost as quick as a McLaren or a Red Bull.
“But I don’t like what this bouncing does to the tyre on a qualifying lap or in a race. I think this is a potentially smaller weakness than the medium and low-speed combined.
“But still a weakness that needs to be addressed given the fact it’s the third year of this regulation and we’re still struggling with this little bouncing.”
On Friday at the Red Bull Ring, Sainz qualified fifth for Saturday’s Sprint event, while Leclerc’s sessions was thwarted by an anti-stall issue that prevented the Monegasque from setting a time in SQ3.
Once again Ferrari was preceded by at least one of its front-running rivals’ cars, an indication that Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes are improving in lock step with Ferrari.
Sainz therefore denies that the Scuderia is lingering in a slump.
“No. I think our set-up is the same as at the beginning of the year, we’re running the car very similar,” he said.
“It’s the same car, we just upgraded it, putting more downforce on it, but our rivals are also upgrading and they are also making themselves quicker.
“That’s why it’s not a slump, it’s just the others are doing a very good job.”
Sainz acknowledged that he had not enjoyed the best afternoon on Friday in Speilberg.
“In terms of feeling, SQ1 and SQ2 was quite decent on the Medium compound. Then with the soft tyres in SQ3 I think we saw our weaknesses a bit and so we finished P5,” he said.
“However, we still have time to adjust a couple of things here and there for tomorrow and hopefully we can have a better qualifying for the Grand Prix.
“Regarding the Sprint Race, we'll try to score as many points as possible and I'm confident we can do a good job there.”
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