“The performance itself was a bit bad.” Frederic Vasseur does not hide his disappointment at the end of the Sprint Qualifying in Austria. Ferrari's weekend in Austria started in the worst possible way. Carlos Sainz only achieved fifth place in Sprint Qualifying, behind Verstappen, the McLarens and Russell. Charles Leclerc had it even worse. The Monegasque will in fact start in P10 due to a problem with the anti-stall which forced him to stay in the pit lane longer than expected, thus failing to complete a timed lap.
Vasseur: “We were fighting with Mercedes and McLaren, I'm disappointed"
Since the Canadian GP, Ferrari has entered a negative spiral. Qualifying performance did not improve, and on the other hand, race performance, the SF-24's strong point, worsened. In Spain the team tried to anticipate some updates which, however, do not seem to have improved the Cavallino's situation much. The main problem highlighted at Montmelò is that of bouncing, a phenomenon that the SF-24 particularly suffers from. In Austria, with the Sprint and the tight deadlines it is not possible to collect so much data. Compared to Barcelona, the Red Bull Ring should favor the SF-24. However, the first results on Friday were rather disappointing, and at the moment Ferrari is not satisfied with the start of the weekend. Added to the on-track difficulties were some rather particular off-track problems, such as Leclerc's anti-stall which prevented the Monegasque from completing a lap in SQ3.
“We inserted the anti-stall in the pit lane, the procedure was a bit long. We were in the queue and Charles had to put the car on the right side, this canceled the procedure.", Vasseur explained to Sky Sport F1 at the end of the Sprint Qualifying in Austria. Vasseur then continued: “The performance itself was a bit bad, but we have to check the data. We were at least fighting with Mercedes and McLaren, but I'm a bit disappointed to have one car in tenth position and the other in fifth, while in the previous sessions we were third or fourth, or at most fourth or fifth, so it's disappointing."
The bouncing that comes back, and the strategy for Sprint
Between a disappointing performance with Sainz and Leclerc's anti-stall problem, Vasseur did not hide himself by talking about a bad performance and the bouncing that the SF-24 suffers from, in the hope of fixing things in the sprint. The doubt is that this phenomenon, highlighted in Spain and found in Austria, is due to the fund introduced by the Prancing Horse team.
“Without a doubt, bouncing never helps, and if it's there it needs to be fixed, but in these types of corners and with these curbs I'm not sure that ours is the one that suffers the most, if we compare the cars. In any case we need to fix it because it certainly wastes a lot of time." Vasseur added. “It is impossible to quantify how much it can waste in terms of time on the flying lap: there was the same phenomenon in Barcelona too, but it was also partly due to the overheating of the tyres. The strategy for tomorrow is to push, because there are no pit stops and I think we won't even have the choice of compound. The only strategy will be to go fast and get back to the points."
Source statements: FormulaPassion
