Ferrari engineer reveals MAIN FOCUS in upgrading struggling car

Charles Leclerc, Jock Clear — Photo: © LAT Images

Ferrari

Ferrari engineer reveals MAIN FOCUS in upgrading struggling car

The Scuderia have been miles off the pace on a Sunday despite impressive Saturday speed

Joe Ellis

Sunday 14 May 2023 18:57

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Ferrari is bewildered as to why their car appears to lack race pace compared to its rivals, according to performance engineer Jock Clear.

The Prancing Horse are the only team to have stormed to a pole position that isn't Red Bull this season courtesy of Charles Leclerc in Azerbaijan.

But once the race begins, the RB19 breezes past and clears off from the Scuderia, who are often left to look over their shoulder at Aston Martin and Mercedes.

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The lack of race pace has seen Leclerc claim the team's only podium of the year in Baku although the team are down in fourth in the constructors' standings.

Charles Leclerc's two crashes in Miami didn't help the team's preparations

Qualifying compromise

“This is what we have to try to solve," Clear said. "We understood quite well where the problems are and we are quantifying them.

"So, in a sense, we can say that we are looking at what happens in the race versus what happens in qualifying, and we can see some differences. Maybe what we fail to notice as differences is what turns out to be so decisive.

"This is what we are trying to do at the moment: identify what we can do to try to bring the race pace back in line.

"Maybe we will have to lose something in qualifying, which is always something difficult to digest, given that races are often decided in qualifying, so we can't afford to let them go.

"But we certainly have to fully understand how to improve the race pace because ours is a learning process on a new car."