Carlos Sainz believes that Ferrari's performance in the US Grand Prix this weekend will be pivotal in determining whether the team can realistically challenge for the Constructors' Championship during the final phase of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Ferrari has shown improved form in recent races, but Sainz emphasized that results at circuits like Austin and Mexico, which present more conventional challenges compared to recent stops like Monza and Singapore, will provide the clearest indication of whether the team's upgrades are truly working as intended.
The Scuderia has been working through a series of car upgrades throughout the season, aiming to address the SF-24's issues with bouncing in high-speed corners.
The team initially rolled back a floor upgrade from Barcelona and introduced revised versions at the Hungarian Ring and Monza in an effort to solve the instability.
While the performances of the Italian outfit's car have been encouraging in the past few races, Sainz is cautious about declaring the SF-24 fully competitive until it is tested at more "normal" tracks like Austin, where high-speed corners and combined sections will put the design's upgrades to a comprehensive test.
"I think the more tracks that we've done since Monza, the more confident we are that the upgrades that we brought to the car have started to work pretty much everywhere," Sainz explained.
"But I've always said, until we go to Austin and we try them on a normal track, we will not be able to measure how much we've actually improved on tracks like Zandvoort and Spa, where we last struggled a bit more .
"So I think this will be the most important test so far for us, to see whether all these upgrades that we brought in the past are working in the right direction for more of a normal kind of track, like we see here in Austin. ”
Ferrari's ability to sustain its current momentum could be the deciding factor in whether it can mount a late challenge to McLaren and Red Bull for the Constructors' title.
Ahead of this weekend's round of racing Austin, which will include a Sprint event, the Maranello squad's deficit to championship leader McLaren is currently 75 points.
"I think a lot of our belief in the constructors' title will come over the next couple of races,” commented Sainz.
“If from here to the end, all the races were like Singapore, Baku and Monza, we would believe that we can do it.
"If in Austin, Mexico, Brazil, that are more standard tracks, we see ourselves falling back a bit and being like we were in Zandvoort or Spa, obviously our belief goes down.
"We are coming back to normal tracks with long combined corners, high-speed corners. Let's see where we are now in these kind of tracks and see if we can still fight like we did in Singapore."
Charles Leclerc echoed his teammate's sentiments, stating that the US Grand Prix will provide a valuable opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of Ferrari's recent upgrades.
While the event's compressed Sprint format may limit data collection, the Monegasque expressed confidence in the team's ability to draw meaningful conclusions.
"For sure, it's a very important weekend. However, I wouldn't say that it's a lot more important than any other weekends where we've brought upgrades," Leclerc said.
"Those upgrades that we've brought in the past few races were difficult to judge. Now it's a good track to judge them, and hopefully we have positive feedback out of them, because this is what we believe is the right direction at the moment .
"I hope we don't learn something new that we didn't understand before. But I'm pretty confident that we are going in the right direction, and that this weekend we should see the results that we are expecting from that."
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