This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
regarding new technical head this is what Fred said
"There will be a dt, it will come from the outside. We should announce it after Monza"
so until monza we wait
At this point, it looks like Sauber will beat Ferrari for P10 by the end of the year, it's a disaster
Look I get where your frustration is coming from and some are certainly overdoing it with the doomposting, but you can't possibly expect people to be happy with the way this season has been going recently.
Did anyone watch Leclerc's onboards closely enough to see what exactly was happening in T8? Heading into that corner Ferrari are 5-8 km/hr slower than the others & as the team said on the radio, they're losing average 4-tenths there. Is it just because they're crap in high speed corners? Terrible bouncing? The car is about to fly off the track? (I didn't have the onboards open.)
Did anyone watch Leclerc's onboards closely enough to see what exactly was happening in T8? Heading into that corner Ferrari are 5-8 km/hr slower than the others & as the team said on the radio, they're losing average 4-tenths there. Is it just because they're crap in high speed corners? Terrible bouncing? The car is about to fly off the track? (I didn't have the onboards open.)
i was working while watching, didn't notice any bouncing so I looked again, compared to McLaren or redbull i saw I don't think we had bouncing feel like track is just bit rough..
Also i hope everyone gets gyroscopic onboard cam, i am in awe how good McLaren onboard looks compared to Ferrari standard one
Did anyone watch Leclerc's onboards closely enough to see what exactly was happening in T8? Heading into that corner Ferrari are 5-8 km/hr slower than the others & as the team said on the radio, they're losing average 4-tenths there. Is it just because they're crap in high speed corners? Terrible bouncing? The car is about to fly off the track? (I didn't have the onboards open.)
They probably raised the car and the modifications they made to the floor for SPA limited bouncing by sacrificing overall downforce.
Look I get where your frustration is coming from and some are certainly overdoing it with the doomposting, but you can't possibly expect people to be happy with the way this season has been going recently.
It's a catastrophe, they aren't even standing still, the car is downgraded all the time, McLaren is seconds ahead a lap. 2025 is gonna be more pain, 2026 even more because they can't make a PU, horror!
Over-the-top sarcasm is not a serious (nor helpful/productive) response to a serious situation. The good news is that 4 tenths is being lost in a single corner, so if they can address that either through setup or how the driver is approaching the corner, the gap isn't as significant as it looks. Still, it's disappointing to see the team falling backwards relative to competitors and seemingly struggling to understand/optimize the car.
It seems the car doesn't have an identity. Early in the season they seemed to have one, which was a car that was kind on its tires, struggled to fire up during qualifying but was a consistent, steady beast in race-trim, and went well in medium-high speed corners, lacking some performance in low-speed. It seemed the identity of the car changed for the better, and then it was a matter of building upon and optimizing the new concept.
Things started to change around Imola/Monaco. I recall chatter that Monaco likely wouldn't suit the SF-24 particularly well, so it was a bit strange (pleasantly so) to see the car go well there, with Leclerc securing pole and a victory. At the time I took that as a positive sign, that perhaps the team had addressed some of the weaknesses in low-speed corners and that the car was more adaptable/versatile/flexible than things initially seemed. The problem, though, is that since the Imola upgrades, the car has not maintained its identity of predictability, stability, and aptitude in medium-high corners, and generally strong performance in race-trim. It's become unpredictable, mercurial, much like the SF-23 during the first half of the 2023 season.
What the hell happened during the timeframe from Imola to Spain? Who was calling the shots on the development direction? Cardile? Tondi? Vasseur? If Cardile led them in this direction then it is reassuring that he is gone, however I'm not sure things are that simple; if Cardile had led them astray, why have they (seemingly) been unable to get things moving in the right direction since his departure? Did Cardile approve of the new upgrades? Or perhaps he disagreed with some of the decisions made with the Imola/Barcelona packages and had the team followed his advice, these missteps wouldn't have occurred. Or, again, perhaps Cardile led them down this path (either via development decisions, or simply by creating a car concept that is limited). Short of being in Maranello, we cannot say. It's certainly disconcerting, though.
It's obvious a janitor would do a better job running as TP and TD than anyone else is now doing. Get Vasseur on toilet duty! Even the WT update must have brought it to where RB and McLaren WT were 5-10 years ago!
We need to optimize the setup, but we could only work on one car due to the issue we found with Sainz's car. Working with two cars is always a bit easier than just one. The gearbox problem in Sainz's car will definitely impact the weekend. It’s not ideal. We had FP1 in wet conditions, so we only had two dry sessions, FP2 and FP3. Then, during FP2, we could only run one car continuously, so we have just one session left tomorrow morning [to test with both cars]. We essentially only have two stints remaining to improve the situation.
You always have to take the positives from today. Charles has gained valuable race simulation experience, which is always a plus. But as I mentioned before, Zandvoort is a challenging circuit where even the smallest differences can be crucial. We must not wait for Monza. We need to achieve a good result here at Zandvoort. We know that last year Zandvoort was our most challenging weekend. Even though it will be very tough, we have to score points.
Leclerc post-race:
Tomorrow, I will give everything I have in qualifying, but the gaps we're seeing right now seem too large for us to achieve anything extraordinary. If we can get within 2-3 tenths of the car in front, we might have a chance to fight for a good grid position. Otherwise, I foresee a rather challenging weekend ahead.
They reduced the downforce to stop the car from bouncing, but now it seems they're struggling in the fast corners as a result. That's my understanding of the situation.
