Ferrari is licking its wounds. The debut of the SF-23 Evo was a true disaster: Carlos Sainz, starting from the front row, finished fifth. Charles Leclerc, starting from the pit lane after troubles in qualifying, didn’t even reach the points zone, with a very disappointing eleventh place at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
The Spaniard suffered a 45-second gap to Max Verstappen, and Charles came close to being lapped: the first outing of the revised and corrected red car was a defeat. And it’s not just the gap to Red Bull, the championship leader, that weighs heavily, but also the significant difference from Mercedes, which with the W14 B, seems to have found the path of recovery after a difficult start, as the black arrows have already moved up to second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
What is happening to Ferrari? The plunge at Montmeló has dampened any enthusiasm and motivation of the drivers who were hoping to start a new championship from Spain. The slap in Catalunya stings, oh yes, it stings.
Fred Vasseur is well aware of this: the captain tries to maintain control of the ship amidst the storm. He has the helm in hand, but it is difficult to understand if he is steering the course. He does not accept the idea that the SF-23 is a completely wrong car and wants to persist in the development of the Evo, which, at first approach, has appeared even worse than the car seen up to Monaco.
And in Maranello, they looked each other in the face during the debriefing because the aerodynamicists wondered where the 12 points of downforce, which were seen in the wind tunnel (worth 3-4 tenths of a second), disappeared to, fueling the words of the team principal, who just last Wednesday spoke of a Ferrari capable of winning races. The leap in quality was supposed to be significant enough to bring the Scuderia back to at least the role of the second force. The track has shown us that it is in fourth place based on what was seen in the Spanish Grand Prix.
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After Barcelona, thinking of victory is utopian, but credit must be given to Maranello for their perseverance in trying to find the key to the mystery. The Evo “eats” tires as much, if not more, than its older sister. The new aerodynamic package was supposed to reduce sensitivity to ride height in corners, but in reality, it didn’t go better, and no advantage was seen on the straights.
The correlation between the wind tunnel and the track has been lost. The doubt is unsettling at this point in the Formula 1 season, but it is legitimate to ask, especially since the Scuderia can take advantage of the Pirelli tests taking place right in Barcelona to try to find some solutions, as explained by Motorsport Italy.
It is true that the SF-23 provided to Pirelli must be in the same configuration it starts the day with, in order to allow Pirelli technicians to “measure” the different behaviors of the various tires. However, it is equally true that yesterday Charles Leclerc completed two and a half Grand Prix, gathering an impressive amount of data to understand how the Evo works.
And today, Carlos Sainz can replicate a second day, facing Mercedes in a direct comparison, even though the work programs are not overlapping, and the lap times are not very significant (Ferrari was faster by three tenths…).
For Ferrari, the work done on the track has always yielded results, and this time the Pirelli test can be particularly valuable not only for the sole supplier but also, and above all, for the Racing Department. Charles Leclerc, in fact, fresh from the pressure-free work at Montmeló, returned to the headquarters to get into the simulator and assess in real-time the information collected in Catalunya.
The Ferrari in Barcelona had no aerodynamic load, so it did not transfer the necessary energy to the tires, to the point that Charles Leclerc’s hard tires “fell apart” after 16 laps, while other cars managed to cover twice the distance without any problems.
The SF-23 Evo seen in Spain was like a grasshopper, going from understeer to oversteer with sudden and abrupt changes in behavior that bewildered the drivers, forcing them to proceed with a slow pace that cannot be expected from Ferrari.
In the Sporting Management, they do not throw in the towel. The hope is that they have finally understood something to find that path that Mercedes has taken with full steam ahead…
