Charles Leclerc has highlighted slow-speed cornering as one area Ferrari must strive to address with the upgrades the team is set to bring to its 2024 Formula 1 car.
Ferrari’s decision to overhaul its car concept for this season has paid dividends as it has emerged as Red Bull’s most consistent challenger in the nascent exchanges.
However, the marque has struggled with warm-up over a single lap to the detriment of starting position and that contributed to McLaren usurping Ferrari in Shanghai.
Leclerc, who had been hopeful he would climb to the podium places from sixth, was bemused that he lost five-tenths per lap on the Hard compound to Lando Norris.
The Monegasque driver suspects that Ferrari could again be somewhat on the back foot at the next round in Miami with McLaren scheduled to introduce new parts.
“I think it’s going to be in line with what we have seen so far,” he previewed. “We’ll be working obviously on trying to understand what was going on with the Hard today.
“To try and fix that and hopefully don’t have that again sometime in the season. But I don’t know.
“It also depends on whoever is bringing upgrades there. We probably won’t, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
“And I think that is going to be the game-changer for the rest of the season. The upgrades are going to be super important to see how the season will develop after that.”
Ferrari accelerated through minor developments to the Suzuka and Shanghai rounds, but the team’s substantial upgrade package is set to debut at Imola next month.
Leclerc has noted that the Maranello-based squad’s engineers are aware that a performance deficit in low-speed corners is a glaring weakness it must seek to resolve.
“I think we know our weaknesses,” he explained. “The slow speed especially this weekend, and in general haven’t been our strength since the beginning of the season.
“So, we’ll have to work on that and then a little bit everywhere.
“Normally, when you put upgrades it’s just to gain a little bit everywhere. But the focus is a bit more on the low speed at the moment.”
