Leclerc forced to Ferrari ‘extremes’ after botched upgrade
Charles Leclerc has described how he has been using “extreme” set-ups with his Ferrari in a bid to understand where its Spanish upgrade went wrong.
After impressing in Monaco with a one-three result, Ferrari’s form has suffered since, with a hoped upgrade in Spain not having the desired effect, and reintroducing the bouncing phenomenon that first struck the ground-effect cars in 2022.
Ferrari sacrificed the British GP practice sessions last time out in a bid for back-to-back testing running instead of pure performance set-up work, with Leclerc believing the strategy had paid off with answers over where the SF-24 machine is struggling.
Pushed on this ahead of the Hungarian GP in Budapest, a track widely seen as similar to Monaco in its tight, twisty nature, Leclerc revealed how he was going “extreme” to help get answers.
“Our rate of improvement until Monaco was really good, and as I have said many times before, we were probably the team that made the most progress from Monza last year to Monaco this year, it was a really good rate of improvement,” Leclerc told media including RacingNews365.
“Then we went to Montreal where we had some issues with the power unit in the race, which obviously cost us a good result and then I think the turning point was Barcelona onwards.
“We had an upgrade that induced quite a bit more bouncing and from my side, especially from that moment on, I’ve been quite extreme in the change of set-up in order to try and find a way around those issues.”
Ferrari has been ‘doing our homework’
However, Leclerc highlighted a positive aspect Ferrari can pull from the difficult run.
“You will pay the price with the results, but you gain a lot of knowledge about those issues, which I think will help us bounce back, starting from this weekend onwards.
“For us it is very important to lose as few races as possible to understand those issues, but I think now we understand them and I am confident that from this race onwards, we can maximise the points and inspire us as well for the rest of the season.”
When pushed about exactly what he had learnt, Leclerc kept his cards close to his chest and remained coy, but confirmed the “extreme” set-ups had helped develop understanding.
“I am not going to go into much detail for now, but we’ve been doing our homework pretty well,” he added.
“By going in extreme ways in the last few races, on my side, I think we’ve learned many things and with a week off between the races, we could make conclusions and make our choices for this weekend.”
