Until the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Considering that it had a deficit of over three tenths compared to the leading Ferrari and Red Bull, and their drivers were separated by just 0.005s, Ferrari is at best the fourth fastest car in Formula 1 in Barcelona or, at best, a marginal third.
This is a worse result than expected at the Spanish Grand Prix based on the overall season trend. However, since introducing a major upgrade in Barcelona, there is a clear potential reason for this. Perhaps the new version of the SF-24 is falling short in some way, either due to misalignment or incomplete optimization?
Well, according to Charles Leclerc, that’s not the case.
Leclerc managed to salvage his weekend after a difficult start on Friday, and was fortunate to avoid a penalty for a major mistake in FP3. Although he struggled to find his rhythm initially, he felt he found it during qualifying, but the lap time simply didn’t come.
“The speed just isn’t there,” he stated. “I’m somewhat satisfied with the progress and feeling I had from yesterday to today, which I believe will pay off in the race. However, I’m disappointed with the speed of the car in today’s qualifying, as we’re further back than expected.”
But what about the upgrade, including a new high downforce rear wing and beam wing configuration, as well as changes to the sidepods and floor? Leclerc insisted that it’s working.
“The upgrade we brought is performing as expected. It’s a significant improvement,” Leclerc insisted.
“There’s still room for further optimization with this new package, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse. I think we’re just a bit off pace this weekend.
“It was good to drive.
“What I can say is that this update was focused on performance, rather than driving quality. So… what we saw was an improvement in performance, without a doubt. And we are seeing the expected results.”
Leclerc acknowledged that comparisons in this sport are always relative, but he didn’t seem to believe that McLaren and Mercedes simply were more aggressive with their developments.
This conclusion would be frustrating for Ferrari, considering that they have already accelerated their plans in response to the circumstances of the 2024 championship. So, if this is the accelerated plan and the updates are not underdeveloped, where would they be in the original plan?
“If you look at the difference between McLaren and Mercedes, it’s more or less what you would expect from the last three races,” argued Leclerc.
“So I think it’s more about us, that we didn’t perform as we should have this weekend.
“But there is definitely a clear trend that McLaren is improving, especially on a track like this, which is normally seen as representative of the cars’ performance throughout the season. So we need to work on it.”
But is the track really representative?
Just like Leclerc, Carlos Sainz was disappointed as he expected to be in the fight for pole position at his home track.
The realization that Red Bull and McLaren are out of reach came during Q2, which was not indicated by the free practices.
However, Sainz had a clear understanding of why Barcelona may be exposing the SF-24.
“We have been struggling with high-speed corners throughout the weekend, and we still have this bouncing phenomenon that is causing us a lot of problems,” he explained.
“Maybe this is also affecting the tire performance in the third sector.”
“I don’t know,” he added with a sigh. “We’ve been dealing with this for three years, and we’re still struggling with this jump in high-speed corners when lateral load is applied to the car.
“It has been challenging throughout the weekend trying to solve this, and we still haven’t been able to do it. So we came to this track, and you can see that McLaren and Red Bull don’t have jump problems, and I think they’re doing a good job.”
According to Leclerc’s previous admission, the update will not have addressed this issue.
It is logical to assume that this disadvantage would be more pronounced in qualifying, when everything is pushed to the limit and the loads are higher than at any other time during the weekend. This is especially true considering the lower track temperature, which provides better grip.
Sainz acknowledged that this characteristic of the SF-24 has been a problem in Suzuka and Shanghai, and with Barcelona removing its final sector chicane that would have balanced the layout more favorably for Ferrari, a defeat in qualifying should not be overly concerning. They should still be reasonably competitive on Sunday.
However, the size of the difference in performance on a fast lap is a different matter.
“We could argue that if we had three hundredths more, we would be in P3,” Sainz said. “But the reality is that I am more concerned about the difference to Lando than the difference to Mercedes, because three and a half tenths is a significant amount of time in Barcelona.”
Ferrari could have accepted this result last year, when they were four and a half tenths behind, but on a lap that lasts about 70 seconds, it clearly isn’t good enough.
© 2024
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