The Ferrari SF-24 and long-distance fast corners: a love that never blossomed. Extreme summary of the problems that Maranello is encountering this season.
After the Spanish Grand Prix, an appointment that left some residue in the relationship between Sainz and Leclerc enough to trigger Vasseur's reaction who called everyone to order (read here), the Madrid native admitted that Ferrari is still struggling with a problem that emerged on the SF-23 and that the SF-24 has not entirely overcome.
“It's the high-speed nature of the tracks with long turns combined that puts us in difficulty“. China, Suzuka, Barcelona, Silverstone and similar theaters are therefore indigestible for the SF-24.
“When you spend a lot of time in high-speed corners… That's where we were weak last year and that's where we're still weak this year. This still remains our priority for development”. For this reason, perhaps, Spielberg is less worrying given his characteristics: read here.
The two standard bearers of the Red team find a point of synthesis on this element after last week's disagreements. Leclerc expressed, in different words, the same concept reported by his colleague: "We struggle at high speed points. We struggled a little more than I would have expected - it's an issue we need to address as quickly as possible. It is not possible to solve these problems so quickly. The first difficult race of the season was Shanghai, where we saw some things. We need to focus on this”.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the Chinese GP and above all two packages of update which, for now and pending better optimization, have not had the desired effects.
“However, before making these updates on a specific problem we need some time and unfortunately we are losing valuable points compared to our competitors”.
Ferrari, therefore, is still looking for the solution to the puzzle. Given that less massive updates of the two packages brought to Imola and Barcelona are expected for the rest of the season, it seems clear that the technicians have no choice but to follow the path of optimizing the current version.
Fred Vasseur explained that new things don't always work the first time and this is the hope that is harbored at Ferrari. Otherwise it would mean that the path taken is not the correct one or that, more simply, the SF-24 does not have much room for maneuver to improve in long, wide-radius curves.
Perhaps it is in this sense that those drafts coming from Via Abetone should be read and that they must demonstrate that a completely new chassis is being studied for 2025. Conjectures, for now, which will only be confirmed in the coming months.
Crediti foto: Scuderia Ferrari