Ferrari's sudden lack of pace could be caused by new floor introduced in France

Ferrari is preparing for the ‘second leg match’: after having raced last Sunday in the home of rival Max Verstappen, in front of a Zandvoort venue all colored in orange and crazy for the magic of its favourite, it will now be up to Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to enjoy the home track factor in Monza’s temple of speed next weekend.

However, at the highly anticipated home race, Scuderia Ferrari arrives with very low morale given the recent events. It was from the other Italian track, Imola, that the spiral of negative results had begun which – even if no one could have imagined it at the time – would lead the Maranello team to falling back in the two world championship rankings, far behind the Max Verstappen – Red Bull duo.

On paper, however, the Italian track is one of the worst circuits in which to try to react and end the domination of the RB 18, while also responding to the constant improvement of Mercedes. In fact, the long and very fast Monza straights seem perfect for Red Bull car, unlike for the technical characteristics of the Ferrari F1-75 challenger. The objective, however, as underlined in the Italian daily newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport with a recent article by Mario Salvini and Paolo Filisetti, must be to show signs of recovery after the many hits received in recent race weekends.

[…] Ferrari’s first problem now is the pace […]. That […] in Zandvoort was insufficient for the third time in a row, after Budapest and Spa-Francorchamps. Not just to be able to keep up with Red Bull, but also to leave Mercedes behind. […] On the single lap, with soft tires, the problem can be masked. […]. The analysis […] must start from the consideration that the floor has been changed on the F1-75 cars ahead of the French Grand Prix. And, except for the pole position at Paul Ricard, the decline began from there. This may be the explanation, more than the dreaded Technical Directive 39 which came into force after the holidays, in Spa-Francorchamps, to limit the bouncing, one of the major issues of these new ground-effect cars. […] In fact […] the problems had already emerged in Hungary, when the Technical Directive 39 was not yet applied. […] a couple of races before that moment, in Zeltweg, […] Charles […] was able to overtake Max Verstappen three times. […] ” – Gazzetta dello Sport pointed out.

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