06/07/2020
NEWS STORY
By any stretch of the imagination, while Charles Leclerc gave a solid performance drive yesterday his podium finish owed a lot to luck, certainly the bad luck of the likes of Max Verstappen and Alex Albon.
While Ferrari went into the weekend aware that it was going to struggle it was only in qualifying that the SF1000's lack of pace really became apparent.
Having said that the first upgrades wouldn't appear until the third race of the year, the Italian team is bringing them forward.
In a statement issued today, said it was working around the clock "in the hope of bringing forward to next weekend the introduction of the aerodynamic package scheduled for the Hungarian Grand Prix, or, at least, some of its components".
"We know there's lots of work to do," admitted Ferrari CEO, Louis Camilleri . "This is certainly not the grid position that a team like Ferrari should have and we have to respond immediately.
"It's clear that we have to improve on all fronts," he added. "The only solution is to react and I'm pleased by the immediate reaction and the work that Mattia and all his team are putting in at every level.
"This is not just to bring to the track today what was scheduled to be ready tomorrow, but also to speed up the programme of development for the coming races.
"This is the response of a united team which is rolling up its sleeves and facing the problems head on, without crying about it.
"We are at the start of a new cycle with a long-term plan. Any setbacks will certainly not change our chosen course and I have every confidence in Mattia and the team in addressing our shortcomings."
The move comes at a time team boss, Mattia Binotto had said there was no "silver bullet" in terms of improving the SF1000.
"What we have seen in Austria is very similar to Barcelona," he said on Sunday. "We need to improve our car. There are some mis-correlations as you have seen with the design, the car behaviour, especially on the aero, that is the development we have started again, since we returned from the lockdown, and that hopefully we will have very soon at the race track.
"It will not be the final solution, there is no silver bullet," he warned, "what's important for us is to improve the type of behaviours.
"If I look at qualifying, compared to the pole, we are missing a second, and of the second, three-tenths is cornering, but then there is still seven-tenths on the power unit, the straights, and I think that one will be very much difficult, because engine is frozen for the season.
"We have a deficit on the straights and it is also about the drag and the drag is not something we are addressing very soon, so a bit of disappointment yesterday to see our speed on the straight so let's analyse our data and see what we can do in the future."
However, noting the lack of pace of the company's customer teams, it is widely believed that the SF1000's issues are more about a lack of grunt from the power unit as the Italian manufacturer continues to find the pace it had before last year's infamous fuel-gate saga.
Speaking at the weekend, Toto Wolff said he was sick to death of Ferrari blaming its poor form on its aero, when it was clear the problem was in a different area of the car.
To compound the Italian team's problems the engine rules that performance development is frozen for the rest of the year, with only reliability updates allowed.
The situation was probably summed up best by Romain Grosjean, who said: "It's always difficult to compare different years but in general all Ferrari power unit users have moved a little bit backwards, in qualifying at least, and the others have improved a lot.
"I guess we had an advantage last year that we don't seem to be having," he added.