We mentioned the serious revamp of Ferrari’s car in Hungary this year or at least the plan to bring major changes to their chassis. I had argued their lack of pace in testing coupled with Ferrari’s insight to the kinds of circuits that will be arranged for a truncated season may have all played a role in the decision.
In keeping with that announcement from Ferrari, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel were asked about the upcoming changes and the chances they feel that have for taking the fight to Mercedes. Leclerc said:
“After the [pre-season] testing we more or less – well, I think we knew that we were not where we wanted to be, especially on the qualifying pace,” said Leclerc. “Then there’s been this whole situation with the coronavirus, everything was closed and then once they reopened, we reanalyzed the data with the small amount of time we had and I think we decided to make a step back to try and analyze from where the issue is coming from first, then work on the issues.
“But first you [need to] know exactly where it comes from and that’s where we’re at, at the moment. We have tried a different route for [the Hungaroring] but, as Seb said, there is not enough time to bring it here.”
With a potentially shortened season, giving two races up at the beginning is going to be very difficult to recover from and that is assuming the changes in Hungary are game-changing. As it is, they are started from a position that Leclerc says is not optimum.
“We still have these question marks and we still have to wait for qualifying to be absolutely sure of what we say, even though we are 99% sure that we’ll be struggling more than last year.”
That’s not a good sign heading in to this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Hat Tip: F1.com
It’s a real shame, as the fundamental design and base structure of the car and engine has been frozen by F1 for 2020 and 2021 due to Covid and the delay in introducing the new design rules to 2022. Only aero surfaces can be changed…. they are going to have two tough years.
With all these resources, this is what you build?