Ferrari's cautious Las Vegas optimism as Red Bull weakness identified

The Las Vegas Grand Prix "will be a good one" for Ferrari, according to senior performance engineer Jock Clear owing to the layout of the track.

Ferrari has gone well at some street tracks in 2023, with high points coming in Azerbaijan and Singapore - with the sole non-Red Bull win coming on the Marina Bay street through Carlos Sainz.

The upcoming race in Vegas features a 1.1-mile straight along the Strip before it weaves around the town in a mix of permanent and temporary circuit, with low downforce expected to be the set-up route most teams opt for.

At the last low-downforce track, Monza, Ferrari secured pole and led the opening stages of the race, before Max Verstappen passed Sainz for the win, with Clear believing the Scuderia could be in for a strong weekend - as he also identified just where the SF-23 package is weaker compared to the RB19.

Cautious optimism for Ferrari

"Las Vegas is going to be a good one," Clear told media including RacingNews365.

"All our indications are that it is going to be a low downforce circuit, and as such, we are confident that we can be competitive there, but [we still have] a tricky car.

"Let's not beat around the bush, it comes in and out of the window quite quickly, and the struggle for us has been to understand why that is.

"I think we understand that most of it might be in the DNA of the car, so for next year, we are focusing on making it a much more benign car, one that doesn't have such a narrow operating window.

"In a race, you can't operate in a narrow window because the race is long, temperatures change, the tyres, and you need a bit of a broader operating window to have a really good race.

"That is where Red Bull's strength is - their operating window is very wide."