Ferrari’s Jock Clear has described the considerable upgrade package it has brought to Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as “chocolatey with a bit more flavour”.
The marque unveiled the much-anticipated tweaks to its SF-24 at Imola on Friday, comprising seven performance-targeted changes in comparison to the launch-spec.
Ferrari aims to respond to the improvements that McLaren introduced in Miami last time out, while also continuing to bridge the remaining margin to leaders Red Bull.
Although Clear has clarified that these developments were planned in advance of that weakness rearing its head, he believes the revisions will naturally ease the issue.
“I think this comes back to the previous point that it’s an organic development of the car so you know we know what route this car is taking from the beginning of the season because you choose your development path and we’re carrying on that development path,” Ferrari’s Senior Performance Engineer explained.
“I think when Charles talks about the weaknesses of the car obviously we’re six races in and there are areas that we’ve identified.
“All of those areas are never going to be any worse, if you just bring a car that has more potential so there’s always that underlying development route and all teams will continue to go down that development route.
“Clearly, there are things that we can do to help the weaknesses of the car and I think that’s more of a set-up thing, so this as I say this development is carrying on an organic growth it’s just more chocolatey with a bit more flavour.
The Briton, 60, revealed that Ferrari has been making strides in the interim period prior to implementing upgrades on the set-up to tackle the inherent shortcomings.
“The set-up I think is what we’re probably still working on,” he continued. “We have some developments in that area as well.
“So I think we’re looking to maybe move the set-up around a bit to extract more from the car and to really target those weaknesses that we’ve identified in the first six races.
“But I think those two development paths carry on in parallel always you know throughout the year you’re always looking to get more out of the tyre contact patch but on an aerodynamic side you’re always going to get more out of the tyre contact patch if you just give it more vertical load.
So there’s the simple we thought we brought a more chunky aero package but we’re also always working on the set-up.
“I think there are things we’ve found in the last couple of races or there are things we’ve identified in the last couple of races that I think we can attack here.”
Unlike McLaren, Ferrari elected to postpone bringing car upgrades this term due to the existance of the Sprint format at the previous two rounds in China and Miami.
Despite the Woking-based squad hitting the ground running with its modified MCL38, Clear reckons that F1 teams need two practice hours to understand new parts.
Asked how long it can take to extract the maximum from a revamped package on the set-up side, Clear replied: “There’s no real answer to that.
“You can dial it in very quickly if you have the right opportunities.
“You know if today is a relatively clean day and both drivers are comfortable with the car, that is we’re not battling just to make the car drivable, if they go out there and say, ‘okay you know this is a pretty good baseline and these are the areas where we need to improve’, absolutely you can do it in two sessions.
“You can’t do it in one session unfortunately, so a Sprint weekend would always be tricky with any upgrade but yeah it’s how long is a piece of string.
“If the upgrade was a monumental change to the characteristic of the car it’s going to take you much longer, but as I say these upgrades are relatively small you know by historic terms.
“You know we used to come with a three-tenths upgrade, those days are gone.
“All the teams are now on a much flatter development curve and as I say a development of a tenth is what you’re looking for to move three, four places up the grid if you’re in the top 10.”
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