Silverstone just like Zandvoort. And no, it obviously has nothing to do with geography, much less with the fact of mentioning two historic European motorsport tracks. Almost 12 months later, Ferrari found itself having to replicate what was done in the Netherlands last season, namely sacrificing a Grand Prix to get back to fighting for victory in the following ones.
The introduction of the new aerodynamic package, during the last races, has taken the Red team out of the fight for success and for the podium, making it the second force and close to Red Bull in fourth, surpassed by both McLaren and Mercedes.
A backward step that hurt fans of the Prancing Horse, but also those who work all season, all year to break the spell that has lasted for almost 20 years and bring the world titles back to Maranello.
The British Grand Prix was the event chosen by Ferrari to carry out the necessary tests to understand where the problem generated by the new components was, and the choice seems to have paid off.
“Last year we experienced exactly the same situation, almost at the same stage of the season: Silverstone, Budapest, and Spa. We stopped at Zandvoort. At that point, we did a good analysis of the situation and recovered well, because in the following weeks we were in the game with the best,” said Frédéric Vasseur, Ferrari’s team principal, at the end of the British race.
“The difficult thing in this situation is that you don’t have tests, real tests, available to solve the problem or, at least, to understand it. It is very difficult for a team to compromise or sacrifice the Friday sessions when you know you are wasting time during the weekend and say: ‘Okay, let’s forget about Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 to focus on the medium term.'”
“Believe me, this decision as a team is very difficult because you start the weekend, and it was even worse at Silverstone due to the weather, and it means you put yourself in a difficult situation, but we already knew that beforehand. But it was even worse on Saturday morning, because we had to use wet tires, but that’s how it went. We made the decision before the weekend and I think it was the right choice.”
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Carlos Sainz’s comments, also spoken at the end of the race, confirmed this thesis: “We are finding our way, we understood what we did wrong and what was the wrong direction we took. Now we need more time in the wind tunnel and at the factory to fix the new package that really brings us performance, and not the problems we had in the last races.”
Frédéric Vasseur confirmed that the correlation between wind tunnel simulations and on-track simulations continues to be excellent. The problem is related to wind tunnel simulation, where it is not possible to replicate bouncing and understand if there are components that accentuate or cause the problem when on track. And this aspect has become Ferrari’s current Achilles’ heel.
“The correlation is good. The correlation regarding aerodynamic load is good. It is still a question mark for everyone and sometimes the bouncing comes up as it did at Silverstone. It is quite difficult to have a correlation, because in the wind tunnel the bouncing is not reproduced. We all have metrics and it is not possible to predict that there will be more bouncing with one component rather than another, but knowing if it will have a negative impact on performance is another story.”
“We changed all the aerodynamic parts and the bouncing appeared in Spain. To solve the problem there are many solutions. Some have compromises on performance, others do not by developing a new package. I think we are at a good point now, the next race we should do with the updated car and the sooner we do it the better, and we will bring updates that give less bouncing.”
At Maranello, at least under Frédéric Vasseur’s management, most of the updates on the single-seaters have worked. This year, however, the package made for the first part of the summer played against the team. Frédéric Vasseur, however, does not make a drama out of it.
“In the last 16 months, all the updates we have mounted have had excellent correlation with what was done in the wind tunnel. Last year it was one of the team’s strengths to make small updates and every time it paid off. This time we had a problem, but it is not the end of the world.”
Now the ball will pass to the engineers of the Ferrari Racing Division, who will have the task of correcting the course and bringing Ferrari back to where we saw it until the end of the Monaco Grand Prix. But they will have to do it without the resigning Enrico Cardile, now destined to become a member of Aston Martin Racing.
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