Ferrari senior performance engineer Jock Clear has detailed some of the "nasty traits" of the SF-23 package that could make the Singapore Grand Prix a challenge for the team. In what has been a largely disappointing season for the Scuderia, the high downforce package has proved troublesome, evidenced by the fact that all four podiums and two pole positions earned have come at low downforce tracks. At the Italian Grand Prix, the team hauled a third and fourth-place finish along with pole for Carlos Sainz at the low downforce Monza. In the Dutch Grand Prix the week before, Charles Leclerc reported he was unable to drive the car owing to its unpredictability in high downforce configuration, with the Marina Bay circuit in Singapore one of the most downforce-dependant circuits on the calendar, with Clear explaining the fine-balancing act the team are trying to tread.
High downforce struggles
"Going into Zandvoort, we knew that it was a circuit that wasn't going to suit us and was going to expose the Achilles Heel of the car," Clear told media including RacingNews365. "We know that there are areas in this car that are really tricky, but it does remain a pretty quick car at most places, it just becomes trickier and trickier. "You saw that with Charles putting it in the wall in qualifying, so it is a car that is very much on the edge of circuits like that. "With a perfect lap around there, we could have qualified third or fourth, which was the potential of the car, but that potential comes with huge risks at those circuits. "It has still got those nasty traits that doesn't give the driver confidence. "Charles said it well that it is not that the grip isn't there, it is just that he is not confident to use it. "It is a very edgy car when we go to those circuits, so we need to work on that."
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