Speed Bumps: SF-24's Woes and Sainz's Fast Track Fears

Ferrari’s SF-24 struggles with efficiency due to high-speed bounces, raising concerns for Sainz on faster circuits.

Ferrari faced an unexpected setback this weekend in Austria, with high-speed bounces affecting the SF-24. Frédéric Vasseur, the Scuderia director, notes that the team managed some compensation, but the issue remains challenging.

“The car’s bouncing was the most annoying surprise of the weekend and also troubled the drivers in high-speed corners,” Vasseur admitted. “We’ve slightly corrected the issue, though it’s not yet fully resolved.”

Carlos Sainz confirms that the upgrades work, provided there are no bounces: “I think it works everywhere there are no bounces. But if you trigger a bounce at high speed and need to slow down, then what you gain in some places, you lose in others.”

“And the more high-speed corners there are on a track, the worse it is on that track because the higher the speed, the slower we are. It’s not ideal, but the team is working hard to try to fix the issue and see how we can come back stronger at Silverstone.”

He further confirms that high-speed corners are the worst for Ferrari: “Without going into details, I think it’s a combination of us not being good in high-speed corners and the fact that we’re bouncing, which makes our speed excessively slow.”

“And, at the same time, we’re bouncing, which makes our speed excessively slow. Here, turn 7, turn 9, we lose a tenth compared to Max in each of these corners, but only in one corner, and it’s very hard to recover that tenth.”

“On the rest of the track, we’re almost equal in slow speed. But we are already working back home to try to understand this new package and the bouncing we have with it, and how we can improve it for Silverstone.”

Ferrari is “behind” Red Bull and McLaren

The Spanish driver confirms that Ferrari has been trailing for three races. After impressive dominance in Monaco, the team experienced frustrating weekends in Canada, Spain, and now Austria.

“Very difficult. It’s a very tricky weekend. We don’t feel like we’ve been on par these last two races. We seem to be struggling. We definitely seem to be a step behind Red Bull and McLaren, and in the fight with Mercedes during the race.”

“During the Sprint and qualifications, I felt they might have been slightly ahead of us, but we made some changes before the qualifications that made the car faster, but also a bit more on the edge.”

“It was very difficult to string the laps together. But I’m happy because I think I managed a decent lap and we are in fourth place, and if you had told me that before the qualifications, I would have been satisfied.”