Charles Leclerc has denied that Ferrari has a “tendency to struggle with development” in Formula 1 amid the team’s drop in competitiveness across the 2024 season.
Ferrari began the campaign as Red Bull’s closest challenger with a revamped SF-24 car which eradicated the recalcitrant characteristics that plagued its predecessor.
However, Ferrari has been unable to capitalise on that promising start as development setbacks have seen it slip behind McLaren and Mercedes in the pecking order.
The Italian marque introduced a sizeable update package at the Spanish Grand Prix, including a revised floor that has amplified the bouncing that had been prevalent.
But while seeing a strong opening to a season unravel has been a common trend since Ferrari’s latest title win in 2008, Leclerc doesn’t believe it has an inherent issue.
“I don’t think it’s a tendency that we struggle with development,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week.
“However, we’ve encountered quite a few issues recently. We’ve had the bouncing for a few races, which we struggled with, which we are starting to get better with.
“However, those new upgrades will hopefully help a little bit that part. Alongside other characteristics that we’ve seen, we are a little bit weaker compared to the others.”
Ferrari is planning to bring more upgrades across the coming races as it strives to return to the earlier-season competitiveness that witnessed it accrue two victories.
Another modified floor in Hungary helped to temper Ferrari’s bouncing issue, but Leclerc has conceded that the hindrance has cost it ground in the development race.
“Just overall performance, we are just not fast enough. Because if you look at Budapest or Spa, our car is in a good place.
“It’s not like we have a particular issue. As I said, yes, the car is a little bit peaky.
“We still have some bouncing in some places, which we have to do some compromise to avoid it and these things make us go slower.
“So all these little details, then we don’t find the performance that we wish.
“But I think it’s just the performance that has changed from the first part of the year to now. It’s not like there’s one particular issue. We are just not fast enough.”
Leclerc endured a tough run when trialling experimental set-ups to help cure Ferrari’s woes witnessed him end the Austrian and British Grands Prix outside the points.
However, the Monegasque, who ventured into the break with third in Belgium, has stressed that Ferrari’s attention is on maximising its prospects until upgrades arrive.
“I don’t expect us from this race to come back to the level of form we’ve seen before Monaco, because before Monaco we had the pace in the car to do these kinds of things,” he said.
“Now we don’t. We’ve had five or six races after Monaco where we were just doing extreme things with the set-up, which was not optimal to optimise our race weekends.
“However, in the last two races before the break, we did optimise the points that we could take with our car. So that’s the target.
“For now, until we’ve got the pace again, we’ve got to focus on maximising our weekends, maximising the points that we can take in order to lose the least possible points to our competitors.
“And then once we have our upgrades, hopefully that will be enough to put us back in the fight and to come back with the points.”
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