Carlos Sainz believes that bouncing is “the main problem” with Ferrari’s latest batch of Formula 1 upgrades, which needs solving ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Ferrari introduced a substantial upgrade package at the Formula 1 Spanish GP but failed to deliver the required pace to challenge at the front.
One week later at the Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring and Sainz in the lead Ferrari was able to split the two Mercedes, finishing third after Lando Norris and Max Verstappen fell out of contention due to their now famous Turn 3 prang.
The competitive order in recent times has placed Ferrari a step behind Red Bull and McLaren and on a par with Mercedes, or even behind the Brackley-based squad and the Spaniard attributes this to one key flaw.
“It’s the main problem,” Sainz responded when asked if bouncing, an issue he’s spoken of over team radio at recent Grands Prix, was at the heart of Ferrari’s troubles.
“Bouncing 100% costs you time.”
The bouncing phenomena that plagued the majority of the Formula 1 grid at the start of the current ground effect rule cycle has largely been eradicated and the fact it has reared its head again on the current Ferrari challenger is cause for concern.
Sainz noted it’s important for Ferrari to quickly understand its issues with the recent upgrades on its Formula 1 challenger as rivals like McLaren and Mercedes continue to find extra performance.
“For sure this new package still has potential to be optimised but in the short term for sure we want to understand whether we’ve done a step in the right direction or not because that will help also future development,” he said.
“This is now number one priority for the team.
“We accept and we realise that since Barcelona we have been less competitive than before Barcelona.
“This obviously raises a bit our concerns to the package and we need to for sure try to understand as much as possible everything involved with it.
“We want to do this exercise in the future but at the same time the others are not standing still and they are progressing exponentially.”
Sainz’s Ferrari Formula 1 team-mate Charles Leclerc put Ferrari’s problems down to pushing the set-up of the car in a way that has exposed “limitations” from the package.
The Monegasque driver said the team has been “struggling” to find the “optimum” set-up window.
“But I feel like we have learnt a lot in the last race, we have run both of the cars in very different configurations and with very different setups and that I hope will help us to learn and to address those issues starting from this weekend,” Leclerc argued.
“I said many times the numbers that we were expecting from this upgrade is there, so the upgrade is working the way it should be but it’s more about where you run the car to optimise those numbers that we see that for now we haven’t quite managed to do that so we are still working on that.”
