Ferrari’s car is lacking performance in several areas, Sebastian Vettel said after the first day of practice for the 2020 F1 season.
Before the weekend began the team said it expected a difficult start to the championship with its SF1000 and is planning to bring a major upgrade for the third round of the championship in Hungary.Asked whether he believes the team can close the 0.6-second gap to Mercedes they had in second practice, Vettel said: “Well right now, no. But it’s up to us to obviously develop and work so that the car gets faster. That’s what we have to do.
“I think we’re lacking overall grip, lacking downforce compared to others, we’re lacking a little bit down the straights, our car is a bit too draggy at the moment. So it’s a mix of all these things.”
Team mate Charles Leclerc gave a similar assessment of the car, saying there is no one area where it is particularly weak.
“The thing that is difficult is that the balance is actually not that bad,” he said. “It’s not completely out of place for now. So we need to work quite hard to try and catch up on overall performance.”
The car’s weakness isn’t just its straight-line performance, admitted Leclerc. “It’s also the speed in the corners. We seem to lose compared to the others.
“Then the balance feels quite good but the overall grip of the car… I guess it’s not only one thing, it’s also the full package that we need to upgrade.
“But we’ll try different ways for tomorrow to try to make work the car in a different way and see whether we can gain some performance.”
2020 F1 season
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- Bottas vs Rosberg: Hamilton’s Mercedes team mates compared after 78 races each
- F1 revenues fell by $877 million in Covid-struck 2020 season
- Hamilton and Mercedes finally announce new deal for 2021 season
- F1 audience figures “strong” in 2020 despite dip in television viewers
BasCB (@bascb)
3rd July 2020, 21:35
Ah, Ferrari – again – made a worse car than last year. Off course losing the power from cheating (even if they found a way that could not be defenitely proven to be illegal by the FIA without Ferrari telling them how they did it), will be a painfull setback.
But the rest of the car also does not seem to be as good as last year either.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
4th July 2020, 8:37
“Drag” (wink). Only ferrari cheat we all know this.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
3rd July 2020, 23:13
Sooo, let me get this straight. Slow in the corners, slow on the straights. But well balanced.
Gabriel (@naylamp)
3rd July 2020, 23:21
so they sacrificed speed for cornering this year but now they have none of both, plus zero grip. here we go again…
Mashiat (@mashiat)
4th July 2020, 2:08
@naylamp Just a repeat of 2014 again.
Adam
4th July 2020, 13:32
Well they cant use their dodgy engine this year either….
Sridhar
4th July 2020, 3:23
If Binotto was as adept in building the car as we he was in indulging in other shenanigans Ferrari would be in a happier palace
Leadership starts at the top . No place to hide. Glad that Seb is moving on.
Dave
4th July 2020, 11:19
Won’t be surprised if Red Bull finish ahead of Ferrari at the end of the season.
Patrick (@paeschli)
4th July 2020, 12:31
Won’t be surprised if RP finish ahead of Ferrari this season