Having put behind him the poker of races in which Ferrari suffered its worst moment of the season, Charles Leclerc wants to get back to having his say in the top spots of the standings starting this weekend, when the Hungarian Grand Prix will take place.
The Monegasque driver, together with the Maranello team, has experimented, has sacrificed races to try to collect data on the package introduced in Barcelona which however has given bouncing to the SF-24. In Maranello they are convinced to have understood what went wrong and at the Hungaroring a modified bottom has arrived precisely to try to eliminate the collateral effect that has taken Ferrari from being the first challenger of Red Bull to the fourth force in the World Championship.
Charles, what moment is Ferrari going through?
“I think our development up to Monaco was very good and I also think, as I have said on several occasions, that Ferrari has been the team that has improved the most from last September to today. Then in Montreal we had an engine problem that cost us a good result. After that, from Barcelona onwards we had updates that led to bouncing. For my part, especially from that moment on, I tried to make even extreme changes to the set-up to try to find a solution. In the end that choice paid dividends because we collected a lot of data, we understood what the problem was, and for us it is important to lose as few races as possible to understand the problem. Now we have understood what the problem is and I think from here on we can do better. Here in Hungary we will try to maximise the result and in Spa we hope to do better.”
Will you be using the new package starting tomorrow?
“I won’t go into detail. You’ll see tomorrow if I’ll be running with the new package or the old one. As I said, we’ve collected a lot of data to understand the problem and I’m confident, the team has done their homework well. But you’ll see tomorrow.”
Do you think the Hungaroring could be a good track to see any improvements you have made in bouncing?
“I don’t think Hungary is the track where bouncing will be more visible. However, we have data from the last races that can tell us a lot if we are on the right path or the wrong one. I think Spa could be a more challenging track for us, a much more significant test. But I am confident that things will go better in the future precisely because of the work done in the 4 races preceding this one”.
You brought new parts to Hungary…
“The new parts we brought are mainly to reduce bouncing.”
So what do you expect from this weekend in terms of results?
“It’s hard to say what we can expect this weekend, because for some time now the gap between the top teams has been a matter of 1 or at most 2 tenths. So it’s hard to know where we will be. But our goal is always to get the best possible result. The most important thing is to have a smooth weekend and not make too many changes to the set-up. If we can do that, I’m confident that we can get back to fighting for the top positions.”
Do you think there is still room to evolve the bottom of the car and find performance or have you reached the limit of development?
“I think there is always a window of improvement for the floor of these cars, because the floor has such a high impact on the aerodynamic load that you can always gain something. Now the window of improvement is smaller because we have been using this regulation for a few years, but there is always something to improve. Details can make the difference. From Barcelona we started to have bouncing with the introduction of small details. So with small changes you can generate big consequences like bouncing, but also the gain is always around the corner with small details. We need to push further in that area.”
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