F1 | Leclerc: “McLaren far away. We will decide which package to use”

The first day of free practice ended with a Ferrari that, without a shadow of a doubt, gave ample space and importance to internal discussions to understand what went wrong with the latest package of technical innovations that debuted in Barcelona.

It is no secret that the updates have brought certain benefits in some sections, but have brought to light new problems, such as the return of bouncing in fast corners. In itself, in reality, during this season the Prancing Horse has never shone like Red Bull and McLaren in the fastest sections, but the addition of rebounds has added another issue to resolve, negatively affecting performance.

For this reason, the Reds took advantage of the first day of free practice at Silverstone, a track that has high-speed areas one of its characteristic features, to carry out some comparative tests between the old package, that is, the one that had made its appearance at Imola, and the new one that debuted in Barcelona. The work was split in both the first and second sessions: while Charles Leclerc used the new one for the whole day, on the contrary Sainz remained on the old one for both the morning and late afternoon sessions.

Differences in behavior and performance could be observed between the two drivers: with Leclerc the gap in the fast corners from the top does not seem to be so marked, especially compared to Sainz, who instead struggled more. However, one aspect that was noted, in particular with the Monegasque driver, concerns the instability of the cars at high speeds, already highlighted in Barcelona. As expected, however, the gap in the slow corners must be treated, where some compromises are inevitable, retracing the same path seen in Spain.

Now the engineers will have to analyse the large amount of data accumulated by the two cars and understand which direction to go, as Charles Leclerc explained: “Now it will be a matter of analysing the data from both cars and making a decision for tomorrow,” said the Monegasque.

“Obviously there’s a lot of data to analyze and everyone is busy trying to make the best decision for tomorrow, but it’s been a very productive day, not particularly fast, unfortunately, but very productive. We’re analyzing everything, so I can’t tell you yet where we’re going, but we’re working on it and I’m confident that we’ll make the best decision for tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately I have the impression that Red Bull and McLaren are much further ahead this weekend, but let’s wait and see. I hope to be there,” added the Ferrari man, underlining however that the amount of data collected today could be useful not only to make the best decision for the rest of the weekend, but also to be analysed during the next week, thus providing useful indications to the group in charge of the development of the car.