In China, two opportunities to make progress
“Every F1 car has the previous decade in its DNA”, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said last summer. The Ferrari recently they have often proved to be 'qualifying' cars, then losing ground in the race due to non-optimal tire management, but the SF-24 has definitively corrected this defect as demonstrated by Charles Leclerc's stint yesterday with medium tire and the final one by Carlos Sainz with hard tyre.
Isolating the Japanese Grand Prix and reducing Ferrari's growth simply to the fact that the SF-24 improved in the race, but lost in Qualifying, is a simplistic and unfounded thesis, to say the least. In fact, in the press conference, Vasseur underlined that Ferrari's performance on Saturday was of the highest level before last Saturday: “We must remember that from Austin to Australia we have been on the front row eight times in a row“. In 2024 the SF-24 in fact conquered the front row in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia, highlighting a certain difficulty in lowering the chronometric performance between Q2 and Q3.
Charles Leclerc underlined that in view of China he will work with his engineers in the analysis of the preparation lap because the Monegasque has always had the house specialty in the flying lap, a single lap performance which was lacking in both Melbourne and Suzuka, compromising then the Grand Prix. They are on the horizon two Sprint weekends and there will be no shortage of opportunities for the men in red to test themselves in single lap performance: “Next time in China we will have two qualifications, which means two opportunities to do a good job“.
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