Ferrari Senior Performance Engineer Jock Clear says the team must strive to match Red Bull’s impressive straight-line speed to reduce the dependence on driver skill to mitigate the time loss.
The Italian outfit opened the new regulation cycle impressively last year with two victories in the opening three races to open up a huge 49-point lead over Red Bull.
However, Red Bull, who had suffered three retirements on either car during that period, recovered from its early season woes to win 16 of the remaining 19 rounds, with Ferrari ending up winless over the course of the second half of the campaign.
While the reigning champions have since extended its competitive margin at the top even further to win all of the opening five races in 2023, Ferrari has slipped behind both Aston Martin and Mercedes to fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Clear, formerly of Mercedes, claims Ferrari has understood the problems its troublesome SF-23 car has encountered and is in the process of identifying the changes that need to be made.
“We have a good understanding of where the issues lie,” he said via Autosport. “It’s quantifying it.
“So, in some ways, we would say, ‘OK, we’re looking at what’s going on in the race compared to what’s going on qualifying’. We can see some differences.
“Maybe what we can’t quite align is how those differences turn out. That’s the process that we’re going through at the moment, [it] is to identify what we can do, or what we can shift around in terms of our focus, to maybe bring that race pace back into line.”
While Ferrari’s qualifying form has been competitive throughout the early stages and landed Charles Leclerc pole position in Azerbaijan, the Scuderia has struggled to maintain that speed over a race distance.
The Maranello-based side is yet to complete a race with both drivers finishing where they started, with both drivers slipping down the order having been a frequent sight.
However, Clear asserts that it is not as simple as sacrificing some qualifying performance to improve its Sunday outlook, despite Ferrari being conscious of Red Bull opting to prioritise race pace.
“Do we have to take a hit in qualifying? That’s always a very difficult pill to swallow because races are very often made in qualifying,” he considered.
“So, we can’t afford to take our eye off the qualifying ball. But certainly, we need to fully understand how we can get the race pace.
“We have to take our hat off to the Red Bull and say they are doing something very, very clever. That car works very, very well in race pace.
“We might also conclude that to do so, maybe they are giving up some qualifying pace. That’s why we can compete with them because they’re not optimal in qualifying.”
The British engineer is also adamant that F1’s most illustrious team must find a solution to counter Red Bull’s superior straight-line speed in order to reduce the reliance on its two drivers to try and make up the time through the corners.
“They are very, very quick along the straights, especially when the DRS is open,” he conceded.
“Again, we have to look at that, see what we can do better to shed that drag, because that’s free lap time.
“The driver doesn’t have to use too much skill to get from [one turn to another] as fast as possible. That’s clearly an area where they were very quick.”
Both Leclerc and team-mate Carlos Sainz complained after a sobering race in Miami about the unpredictability offered by the temperamental package beneath them.
Ferrari debuted a new floor in Miami and team principal Frederic Vasseur has already confirmed that further developments will follow across the coming European rounds.
