Ferrari wary of further 'banana skin' after overcoming F1 dip

Ferrari performance chief Jock Clear believes the Scuderia is still wary of encountering further "banana skins" after overcoming its performance dip.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz started the season strongly, and after a one-three finish in Monaco, Leclerc was only 31 points behind F1 championship leader Max Verstappen, with the team 24 adrift of Red Bull, and 68 ahead of McLaren. 

After the Singapore GP, McLaren is now leading the standings 41 points ahead of Red Bull, with Ferrari in third, 85 points behind the Woking-based squad, with Leclerc 86 down on Verstappen in the drivers' title race. 

Ferrari's form has been encouraging since the summer break, but a dip between the Canadian and Dutch Grands Prix proved costly as a result of a failed floor upgrade at the Spanish GP, primarily as it reintroduced bouncing to the car. 

The team has worked through the problems encountered, but Clear, who also serves as Leclerc's performance coach, believes the next hiccup will be swift in coming.

"You're never fully confident, and after Spain, we didn't feel that we had lost our way, but there was an anomaly between what was happening in the wind tunnel and what we were seeing on track," he told media including RacingNews365.

"We had to get on top of that, but it is just the process, and if you looked at it at the time, you might come to me and say, 'It looks like your process isn't working'. That is the process.

"When you see an anomaly, you have to get on top of it, try to understand it and then get back on track. 

"What you've seen since [Barcelona] is that we've understood it, got back on track and just have to keep our eyes wide open for what the next anomaly will be because there will be another one.

"That is the process at the moment. Sometimes these developments don't work. The development process is that you are testing something new every week.

"We're confident that our process is working, confident that we're on top of everything. We'll just wait for the next banana skin."