Frederic Vasseur is not sure whether Ferrari's car problems can be fixed for the 2024 season as the Scuderia aims to reverse a poor 2023. After hitting the ground running at the start of 2022, Ferrari's promising start fizzled out, but hopes were high that lessons learnt from the F1-75 would make its SF-23 successor a car capable of allowing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to be title contenders. However, the car has suffered from poor race pace and aerodynamic issues, with the best performances coming on low-downforce circuits, with pole positions in Azerbaijan and Italy and four podiums in the first 14 races of the year. Vasseur has been reluctant to simply change the Ferrari 'concept', believing the team should work to identity its problems, but has conceded solving all of the issues with the car can be rectified in time for next season.
Ferrari's 2023 problem
"When you want to improve, you have to do two steps," Vasseur told media including RacingNews365. "The first one is to understand where you are weak and the second one is to fix it. "I think we have probably a better picture of true weakness today and we are working on it, and trying to improve before the end of the season. "But it’s not an easy one with the calendar, and at least for next year [as well.]" Ferrari's chassis and aerodynamic director Enrico Cardile echoed Vasseur's thoughts, by revealing the team had continued working in the wind-tunnel to solve problems with the current package. "This year has been crucial for us, to put a lot of effort on this year’s car, to better understand from where the weaknesses were coming, and how to do a better job," Cardile said. "We've kept developing the car in the wind tunnel since the summer break, and we will bring some updates in the next races but now [in the] wind-tunnel we are fully focused on next year’s car. "Our main weakness is on the aero characteristics of the car, so all the focus since [pre-season testing in Bahrain] when it has been pretty clear that we were not at the level we expected to be, has been on improving the aero characteristics of the car."
Most read
