After the negative weekend in Barcelona, Ferrari arrived in Austria with different expectations and, above all, with the desire to return to fighting for the top positions. On the contrary, the sprint qualifications at the Red Bull Ring highlighted two elements: on the one hand, at least on the single lap, the Reds were once again the fourth force, behind even Mercedes, while secondly, here too the theme of bouncing was repeated.
Due to its aerodynamic and mechanical characteristics, Barcelona is one of the most demanding tracks in the world championship, where bumps can occur more acutely. However, Austria has different peculiarities and it was hoped that the phenomenon encountered in Spain could be linked to the track itself or that it was a failure to optimize the package introduced on Catalan soil.
On the contrary, the same critical issues recurred at the Red Bull Ring too, especially in the last two corners of the track, those where not only the overall load matters most, but also having great general stability so that the car does not experience movements that could lead to the error located inside the passenger compartment.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24
Photo credit: Mark Sutton
The fifth and tenth places, therefore, are only one of the negative notes of the day: “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 am also disappointed by the fact that we have one car in fifth position and the other in tenth. In the free practice before we were third and fourth”, explained Frederic Vasseur to the microphones of Sky Italia.
“Bouncing certainly never helps. If there is a bouncing phenomenon it will have to be fixed, but in this type of curve, with these kerbs, if we compare the cars I am not sure which one has more bouncing, but in any case it certainly needs to be fixed because it wastes a lot of time”.
“It is impossible to quantify how much we lose, also because the same phenomenon occurred in Barcelona in turns 7-9, there was a bounce, partly due to the overheating of the tyres”.
Only three elements stopped Ferrari today: pure performance, bouncing and reliability problems, because Charles Leclerc was not even able to complete an attempt in SQ3, as he was stopped by a technical failure. While he was in the pit lane, ready to go out on the track, the anti-stall system came on his single-seater to prevent the car from stalling. The images show that, once he realised this, the Monegasque immediately pressed the button to put it into neutral.
![Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/0RrvqpB0/s1000/carlos-sainz-ferrari-sf-24.jpg)
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
However, the strangest fact is that, while the antistall appears to have remained active, as indicated by the flashing lights on the steering wheel, the car shut down, which prompted Leclerc to park his SF-24 at the side of the pit lane, having to carry out the reset procedure to turn the Power Unit back on. After carrying out the restart procedure, the car started working again, demonstrating that the problem seems to be linked more to something in the software, similar to what had already happened a few weeks ago during the Canadian Grand Prix.
“The antistall entered the pit lane, the procedure was a bit long, we were in the queue and Leclerc had to move the car to the right side to reset the car,” explained the Cavallino Team Principal, but without providing details more about the nature of the problem.
At this point, Leclerc, but also Sainz who will start from the third row, will be forced into an uphill race, with the aim of pushing to at least overtake the two Alpines and try to fight with the Mercedes: “In the sprint race the only strategy is to push, because there are no pit stops, so I think we won’t even have the choice of compound, because we’ll all be going in the same direction. The only strategy for the sprint will be to push and get into the points,” added Vasseur.
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