Ferrari has been forced to rethink over its strategies after the team failure to make it to the podium at Spanish Grand Prix.
The team will be re-considering its Formula 1 car SF90’s concept behind the design.
Sebastian Vettel with his SF 90 was able to finish fourth at Circuit de Catalunya with Leclerc behind him finishing fifth. Both started their race at third and fourth position.
Max Verstappen started off at fourth position but finished at third after Mercedes driver who took off at first and second place. They finished the race with first and second place on podium.
Ferrari lagged behind the title defending team, Mercedes, for about half a minute before the deployment of Safety Car.
Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto, praised Mercedes for making it to first two positions in the first five races of this year season.
He said, “Before [judging] e our performance I think compliments to Mercedes. They have been really very strong so far in the season so merit to them, they work very well and very hard so that’s not a surprise.
“But on our side I think we can work very hard and very well as well, the season is still, we will never give up, I think that’s our approach. So [there’s] much to learn from here.
“Certainly we are disappointed for the race, we are disappointed for the performance in the weekend. Our hope was to deliver more. I think we brought here some upgrades – aero, engine – and we were expecting somehow to be in the fight but it has not been the case.
“The upgrades work well. I think power-wise, straight-line speed we are good enough but certainly we have some weaknesses in the car that were highlighted this weekend. [It’s] up to us to try to understand, to work, to assess, to improve in the future. It can only make us stronger in the future, that’s the final story of this weekend.”
SF90 has been considered to have an advantage of the pace. But it lack performance at the corners which had cause severe performance issues. Binotto pointed that the issue is of complex nature and might need to re-think over design philosophy.
“We are losing a lot in each corner, not only in the last sector, I think each single corner we are slow, quite a lot of understeer. It’s not only downforce, it’s more than that, it’s something which we need really to analyses and understand.
“Any early conclusion today will be a wrong conclusion. it will take some days to really have a proper analysis and try to understand. It’s a matter of balance, a matter of downforce, it’s a matter of maybe even car concept. I think [while] we do not have the answer, I would like not to go through it.”
