Maurizio Arrivabene says Ferrari has been aware of its shortcomings on high-downforce Formula One venues but admits it did not go full on in trying to fix them amid preparations for 2017’s radical regulation changes.
The Scuderia was the third quickest team at last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, while it had had the upper hand on Red Bull pace-wise in Japan a fortnight earlier.
“I don’t want to repeat all season where we have some issues,” Arrivabene said. “It’s clear now that circuits with high downforce do not suit us.
“Austin is a high-downforce track and it’s not comparable to Suzuka where we made some steps and were happy about this. But the characteristics of COTA are completely different.
The Ferrari team principal also backs the Maranello-based outfit’s decision to grant more attention to its 2017 challenger over its current-spec SF16-H.
“If you start to focus your attention on solving this year’s problems, you are losing time for next year’s development,” Arrivabene added.
“This is the reason why we have been very much concentrated on [our] high-performance circuits like Suzuka because they can give you data for next year’s car.”
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