Fifth and eleventh place finishes are certainly not the booty Ferrari hoped to fight for on the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix, a round that showed all the weak points of a car on which there is still a lot of work to be done. Do.
Although it is true that in this first part of the season the values in the field have continuously alternated behind Red Bull, with Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin fighting for the second force prize, in Spain probably something more was expected, above all because after free practice the riders and the Prancing Horse Team Principal seemed to have greater confidence for the race.
Drawing a line up to this point in the championship, the trend in these first Grands Prix has been that of a competitive Ferrari especially on the flying lap, while in the race all the difficulties emerge in being able to find consistency which, however, is the point strength of rivals. In some favorable appointments, more suited to the characteristics of the SF-23, Ferrari was able to mitigate these aspects and achieve a good result, but Barcelona has done nothing but highlight what the team led by Fred Vasseur needs to work on .
“The main problem we have had is in line with the last few races. The potential of the car is there, in qualifying we have a decent pace, not compared to Max (Verstappen), but at least compared to the group, we managed to bring Carlos (Sainz) to the front row, which shows that the potential is there . Instead we struggle much more to have consistency during the race, from compound to compound. Also with Charles (Leclerc), from one stint to the next, because the first stint with the hard tire was difficult, while the second went differently, while in the central stint of the race with Carlos we lost 15 seconds”, said the Team Principal at the end of the race to the microphones of Sky Italia.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, makes a pit stop
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Vasseur continues to argue that it’s not a problem with tire management per se, but rather with inconsistency during the race. However, at the end of a disappointing Sunday, the Frenchman also wanted to underline the positive aspect, namely second place in qualifying: “It’s not a question of tire management, because in the last stint the performance was there, so it’s a matter of degradation, but if you push harder you have more degradation and this is the same for everyone. I think we did a good job in the last stint. On the positive side, I think the potential is there and sooner or later we will be able to unleash this potential by better understanding the tires and their management, but we have to do it”.
“We have to focus on our work and what we have to do. We have to take the positives and the negatives, at least I think we have a clearer picture of what we are doing well and what we need to work on. We must not be soft in the analysis. Clearly there is still this problem with the tyres, we are too fickle from stint to stint. The positive aspect is that the pure performance of the car and its potential is not bad, because we manage to be constantly on the front row”.
“From the point of view of updates from the point of view of pure performance we have taken a step forward, it was Carlos’s best qualifying. The important thing is to separate what went well from what didn’t go well. I think that regarding the potential of the car we have taken a step forward and have managed to free up a development path for the next races. But we still had the same problem where from a stint we suffered or not”.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23, Pierre Gasly, Alpine A523
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“This means that there are still some problems, but the potential is improving, at least we finished ahead of Aston Martin, which was not the case in Miami. We think we have taken a step forward in terms of performance.”
Mercedes’ good performance didn’t come as a real surprise, also because it picks up on a trend that has already been seen in other appointments, with the Star’s car more effective than the Red one over long distances. An element that Vasseur himself underlined, recalling once again when Ferrari has to work to be able to achieve the same consistency: “No (I’m not surprised by Mercedes), if we look we are in line with the last few races. We are faster in qualifying but they are faster in the race. The problem is that the points are scored on Sunday and not on Saturday and therefore we have to take a real step forward. We must be clear in the analysis of what is good and what is not good”.
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