F1 | Ferrari: the engine is safe, the relaunch is being prepared in Spain

The Ferrari is not the one seen in Canada. Under the water of Montreal I saw the worst red of the season. Very bad. So disappointing that it seemed like just a bad copy of the SF-24 which in previous races competed within a tenth of a second with Red Bull and Mercedes. After qualifying, the “censor” Fernando Alonso commented in his pedantic way to the media on Saturday: “We’re dealing with smart people, aren’t we? We are ahead of Perez and ahead of the two Ferraris, who had already won the World Championship in Monte Carlo.”

Two retirements, zero points. The Canadian haul is bleak, but the Cavallino team must react immediately to this… fall which interrupted the enthusiasm that had ignited after Charles Leclerc’s success in the Principality.

It is a Scuderia that arrived on the island of Notre Dame with “flat tyres”, without having the awareness of being able to fight on equal terms with its most accredited opponents and the facts have shown that in the flying lap the red team also ended up behind Mercedes , Racing Bulls and Aston Martin. The SF-24 ended up off scale, a sign that something big was wrong in the planning resolution for the Montreal curbs. The feeling (but it is almost a certainty) is that Ferrari, having to raise the surface from the asphalt, lost much more load than the competition, finding itself with a car that did not transfer enough energy to the tires to send them into the temperature window.

It’s true that a few thousandths of a second made the difference in Q2, but the team was unable to react to the difficulties with the attitude of someone who is aware of its potential, allowing itself to be caught up in that climate of inadequacy that accompanied the North American weekend.

The drivers themselves seemed apathetic compared to the fighters we know, but it is reasonable to believe that a “virus” spread in the Cavallino garage which contributed to debilitating the entire team.

If we add to all this the electronic problems with Leclerc’s power unit, it is easy to complete a decidedly negative analysis of a trip to be cancelled. Charles’ engine suffered no damage although it suffered from misfiring which deprived the Monegasque driver of significant power for around 15 laps: Fred Vasseur spoke of 80 horsepower.

As a precaution, Ferrari will replace the PU control unit and everything should return to normal in Spain. Barcelona will be a crucial event: the Spanish track is a sort of open-air wind tunnel that combines all the characteristics to see if a car is competitive. A terrain not usually favorable to the red as it combines the long straight and the fast and long corners with a very guided T3 which seems designed specifically to highlight the defects of the red.

Cooling of the Ferrari SF-24: the differences between Canada and Monaco

Picture of: Giorgio Piola

In the debriefing in Maranello after the Canadian “Caporetto”, Vasseur did not make any “trials”, hoping that the Racing Department will immediately find the key to the problem, trusting that the team’s potential is different. The first simulations for the Catalan track seem encouraging: the desire is to extract all the potential from the SF-24 with careful fine-tuning work. So far the update package that debuted in Imola has given positive indications, but has not yet shown the numbers that Cardile’s technicians had seen in the wind tunnel. There is an attempt to anticipate some new features in Spain, but the team principal prefers to proceed with cautious feet, only putting parts in the car that have been adequately verified.

The Canadian blow was strong, but the French manager, with very broad shoulders, did not falter. And he expects the rest of Sports Management to follow him, focusing on the technical and human values ​​that the Cavallino is able to put on the field…