Ferrari eye win at Spa, but warn ‘nothing is a given’ | 2019 Belgian GP. Ferrari eye win at Spa.

Scuderia Ferrari believe the nature of the Spa and Monza tracks means they should be in the mix for wins in the next two races, but the Italian side’s Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted that they can’t count their chickens before they hatch.

Twelve races into the 2019 season and Scuderia Ferrari are still awaiting their first win of the campaign as Mercedes (10) and Red Bull (two) are the only two teams to have tasted success. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc were well of the pace of the front-runners in the final race before the summer break at the Hungaroring.

Up next is the Belgian Grand Prix followed by the Italian GP and Ferrari expect to do better as they have traditionally performed well at those tracks, but Binotto is refusing to get ahead of himself.

“I think [Spa and Monza] are more power sensitive, so we should certainly be more [successful] there, but there is nothing that is given,” he told the official Formula 1 website. I think our competitors are all very strong and we try to challenge ourselves. ” – he explained – “I think the situation will be different to Budapest and we will try to prepare ourselves the best to seek the first victory.”

In terms of wing choices, the teams will generally opt for their low-downforce packages at Spa, but then an even lower one-off package for Monza.

In terms of circuit sensitivities, Monza gives the highest reward of all the tracks on the calendar for a reduction in drag. Second-highest is Spa. Typically, a given reduction in drag at Monza would give a lap time improvement five-times that of Monaco. Or, to pick a more typical track, around 1.5 times that of Paul Ricard. So if your drag reduction found you 0.2s at Ricard, you could expect the same amount of drag reduction to find more like 0.3s at Monza.

Monza is much more extreme in its layout, with very little downforce reward compared to other tracks but big reward for power and low drag. Of all the tracks on the calendar, appropriately (as their home venue) Monza is, in theory, perfect for Ferrari – a place where their power and drag advantage are worth more lap time than at any other track and where their lack of downforce is punished less than anywhere else.