Ferrari are increasingly confident the cornering weaknesses from last year have been improved with the 2020 car.
Last year’s SF90 struggled massively compared to its rivals on more technical circuits last year, something that was most highlighted in Hungary when Sebastian Vettel finished a minute behind race winner Lewis Hamilton.
Therefore, if Ferrari wanted any chance of competing against Mercedes and Red Bull this season, they knew the only way to do that was to abandon the low-drag philosophy which they previously adopted.
“The car of this season is faster in the corners and slower on the straights, which was an objective when we designed this car,” said team boss Mattia Binotto.
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“Last season we were too slow in the corners so we tried to put as much downforce as we could in the car to be as fast as possible in the corners, but now we are paying off a bit on the straights.
“And in terms of overall balance, in slow-speed corners, there is something we need to improve.”
Feedback from the drivers is positive, however, with Charles Leclerc claiming he can certainly feel the difference through Barcelona’s twisty final sequence of turns.
“Sector 3 is the most technical one, where there are the most corners, and on that, I’m pretty sure we have improved and I can go quicker through the corners,” said the Monegasque on Wednesday.
“I think the biggest strength is the speed around the corners and I think on that, we have achieved our goal.
“Then we need to wait and see for the overall performance of the car, but… we are going around the corners quicker than we did last year, so that’s positive.
“But we need to keep working on this car to unlock a bit more performance.”
Indeed, Ferrari has continued to be downbeat about their 2020 potential, with their lap times in testing still nothing special.
But Leclerc does think there will be a better read on their performance before this week is over.
“I think for every car, there is a target balance,” he explained. “A balance that you target for qualifying and for the race to extract the maximum out of the car.
“For now, we’ve tried different options today, I think I’ve started to have an idea of which balance we need to target to be the quickest on track.
“We’ll have to finalise that for the last day, which will be very important for the qualifying and the race in Melbourne.
“We are focusing on ourselves, trying to work as much as possible without listening too much to the outside world.
“I can’t speak for the others, but I’m pretty sure the top three teams haven’t shown their true potential yet.”