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Leclerc, Sainz talk about Ferrari updates in Spain; Vasseur adds on

  • Darshan Chokhani
    • Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari, F1

    4 - GP MONACO F1/2023 - DOMENICA 28/05/2023 - credit: @Scuderia Ferrari Press Office

    Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz take up the updates from Ferrari in F1 Spanish GP, as Frederic Vasseur adds his bits.

    Having talked about incoming updates for Ferrari, a big chunk finally got revealed on Thursday of F1 Spanish GP albeit via spy shots from journalists who managed to capture those while the mechanics were prepping up the car in the garages.

    The F1 teams are not mandated to show or keep their garages open for Thursdays as such. The key aspects of Ferrari that could be spotted were the changes to its sidepod, engine cover, mirror mounting/case and the floor edges.

    It is going towards more some of the existing styles while retaining some of the Ferrari bits. The F1 Spanish GP will be a big test for Ferrari and one which Leclerc, Sainz and Vasseur know, but they also add that it will only start the string of things to come.

    Everything won’t be decided on the back of Spanish GP but after 2-3 races when the updates settle down. “We are not expecting any big miracles, to be honest,” said Leclerc. “From now on, we want to try and bring some small upgrades every race. This one should go in the right direction. But I don’t think it will be a massive change.

    “At the moment, the thing is that we have extremely peaky car that in qualifying on the one lap pace with new tyres, the wind that we know exactly how to drive the car, it’s okay, as soon as we go a little bit out of those conditions, the car loses so much downforce overall. So we have been working a lot on that with this new car.

    “So this should help us to not gain that much performance, but to at least be a bit more consistent throughout the weekend, which hopefully will help us to to have a better result on the Sunday,” summed up Leclerc, as teammate Sainz concurred on the car being peaky and the updates tested at Barcelona being crucial.

    “We have an upgrade,” said Sainz. “How good, time will tell, but we have an upgrade coming. It’s a bit of a new direction, a bit into what we believe should be the right path, into developing this car and making it a bit more of a driveable car, more consistent, better in the race, that we know is our main weakness.

    “You’ve seen it hasn’t been an easy start to the season and we’ve been struggling but it is true that with this first step into this direction we try and correct the deficiencies we have. But we also know that this upgrade is not going to change our life from one race to another. It’s still the first step of many steps to come,” summed up Sainz.

    For Leclerc, it is certainly important to get a good look and a proper circuit gives them the chance to do so, considering that the weather too remains good. “It’s really important, especially because Barcelona is known for probably being the best track to understand exactly where you are with the car,” he said.

    “So I think it’s really good to have this new upgrades here and to understand where are we and and so we can confirm still our weaknesses. I think in our mind, even though we’ve had very different tracks, it’s very clear for us where we need to work. And that is mostly on race pace, and having a car that is a bit easier to drive. And now I think is a perfect track to see whether this upgrade is going in the right direction or not,” summed up Leclerc.

    Team boss Vasseur noted that the team’s focus has been to eliminate the inconsistency as much which is not helping the drivers to drive it to its fullest. The inconsistency is not allowing it for the moment and the people back in Maranello are working towards a better solution which will help them generate lap time in the races especially.

    “There are a lot of questions, the first one is about package,” said Vasseur. “I think it’s not just about potential, and package and upgrades, but we also have to operate the package in a better window. The first target for us is not just to put downforce on the car, it’s to have the car a bit more consistent, and on top of the update we have a big room for improvement with the current car in terms of performance.

    “Do we have to restart from scratch on the group on the car? I would say that, as long as I’m convinced we can improve on the current car, it would be a mistake during the season to change completely the target. The introduction of a package, you are not doing 100% of the usage of the package the first race.

    “It will be an opportunity for us to continue to develop the car with this base and I hope we will do a step forward in Barcelona for sure, but it won’t be the end of the development of the car, we have updates for the next 2-3 races coming in after this one. It’s a matter of doing a good usage of the package that you have, to do a good usage of the tyre, to do a good usage of the balance of the car.

    “So far, we are not perfectly there and as it’s very, very tight. If you are a bit out of the right window you over-push and damage everything. But it doesn’t mean you have to change everything on the car and change your concept. We are pushing like hell in the factory to bring updates as quick as possible because we are not happy and the results of [Monaco] are not the target and we want to do better. But we will continue to develop in any case. We’ll bring updates and solutions to try to improve on this area but for sure we can expect to win [this season],” summed up Vasseur.

    Here’s Charles Leclerc donating for Emilia Romagna

    Here’s Christian Horner, Frederic Vasseur on crane moment

    Here’s Frederic Vasseur on strategy mistake