After the first few rounds of the season, Ferrari F1 had emerged as the second force behind title-defenders Red Bull, with the Scuderia bagging a 1-2 in Australia as Carlos Sainz won at Albert Park in the SF-24 from Charles Leclerc.
The power balance quickly shifted after the first round of updates to the 2024 cars. McLaren and Mercedes entered the fray, with the four teams now very close in performance.
Ferrari acted quickly and brought their second update package of the season to Spain.
However, the package, which looked good on paper, didn’t translate well to the track, leaving the Italian outfit trying to find a remedy as they were bouncing in high speed corners, struggling to score podiums in the process.
Talking ahead of the Brazil GP, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc spoke on the difficulties in striking the right balance and how Ferrari F1 learned from past mistakes to improve its SF-24.
“It’s a very technical question. You are right, it definitely makes a difference.
“I think as a driver it’s very difficult to drive on peak numbers. But that’s also a balance that every driver needs to find with their own team. I think we’ve learnt a lot in the past from exactly that.
“We are in a good place now with it. We are happy with the work we’ve done, but that didn’t come easily.
“It came with having sometimes upgrades that looked really good on paper, but that weren’t really good on the track.
“That helped us to find our own balance, which I’m happy we did.”
Ferrari also examined rivals McLaren and Mercedes and found that the flexibility of their front wings was a potential source of their performance gains.
Together with Red Bull, Ferrari raised these concerns to the FIA, which prompted new tests.
The FIA declared the front wings legal, and Ferrari subsequently introduced and upgraded theirs in Singapore. A floor update in Monza was also very key to the turnaround.
Leclerc notes that the new front wing has helped Ferrari.
“We’ve had a new front wing in Singapore.
“I’m not going to go too much into the details of this, but of course it helps. We know it does and that’s why we wanted to have the clarification before doing anything on our side.
“But since we do, yeah, it’s going well.”
Ferrari still has a stake in the Constructor’s title, sitting in P2, only 36 points behind McLaren.
Charles Leclerc, who was ruled out of the title fight following the Brazilian GP, is currently placed P3, with 24 points separating him from McLaren’s Lando Norris.
With only three races to go, it will be interesting to see who emerges on top.
