Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur is adamant the team took a “step” towards solving its recent issues with the experiments it conducted in Formula 1’s British Grand Prix.
The Italian marque’s plight continued at Silverstone with Carlos Sainz trailing home fifth while a premature move to Intermediates saw Charles Leclerc go a lap down.
Ferrari’s latest updates in Barcelona prompting an unintended bouncing recurrence at high speed prompted the side to split car specs in the earlier practice sessions.
The data gathered between the two packages resulted in both drivers running the earlier-spec SF-24 to make the car more compliant through the Silverstone sweeps.
However, Sainz was adamant prior to the race that reverting to the iteration that inspired Ferrari to two victories earlier in the season wouldn’t deliver a marked upturn.
But while that transpired to be the case when stable conditions were present, Vasseur is convinced Ferrari made progress towards understanding its recent struggles.
“It’s difficult to say this after the result of today, but I think we did a step forward this weekend, at least on the technical side,” Vasseur reviewed.
“We have a much better understanding of the situation Sunday evening than Friday morning, and this I think is encouraging for the last part of the season.
“For sure the result today is not ideal, but we compromised mainly the result yesterday, that more than today.
“Carlos did a solid race, that he was able to come back on Max on the first int and to stay 10 laps in the gearbox of Max [Verstappen], with Medium at the beginning of the race.
“On Charles it’s a bit more chaotic, because he was stuck behind [Lance] Stroll, he lost 10 seconds, and when we had the first call for the pit stop, it was a bit on the edge.”
Vasseur has likened the situation Ferrari is experiencing to one it endured at Zandvoort last term, when similar tests helped to inspire a turnaround in the latter races.
The Maranello-based squad sacrificed that particular weekend to obtain more data on the car’s behaviour and that provided the base to secure the sole non-Red Bull.
Vasseur believes Ferrari’s choice to replicate that at the Northamptonshire venue was the correct call and will help the side in recovering lost ground in the long term.
“I think we had exactly the same situation last year, almost at the same stage of the season,” Vasseur recalled.
“Silverstone, Budapest, Spa, and we stopped it in Zandvoort to do a complete scan of the situation, and we had a good recovery, because the weeks after we were there.
“As you said, what is tough in this situation is that when you have an issue, you don’t have a proper test to fix it, or at least to understand it.
“And it’s quite difficult as a team sometimes to compromise or sacrifice a Friday session, when you know that you are losing a little bit of time during the weekend.
“And to say, ‘OK, let’s forget about FP1, FP2, be focused on mid-term’.
“Trust me, this decision as a team is very difficult, because you start the weekend, and it was even worse in Silverstone with the weather, I’m sorry.
“It means that we put ourselves in a tough situation, but this we knew before. And it was even worse with the fact that the Saturday morning was with wet tyres.
“That for sure it was not helpful, but we assumed the decision before the weekend, and I think it was the right call to do it.”
The Frenchman has also stressed that Ferrari is not fixated on the championship picture amid McLaren now whittling down its hold on second place to seven points.
Asked whether Ferrari could still entertain thoughts about catching Red Bull this season, Vasseur responded: “Honestly, I’m not focused.
“If you ask me what the classification is, I know that we are P2 because your colleague asked me the same question 10 minutes ago.
“But I don’t know about how many points we are behind Red Bull and how many points we are ahead of, I don’t know who is P3, it’s McLaren probably.
“And it’s not the topic of today. The topic of today is to find performance, to come back in the situation of Monaco or Imola, and to be able to fight for pole position and the win.
“Then, the championship, we have still 12 races to go or 13 races to go. It’s almost a championship. It means that we’ll have time to change everything 10 times.”
