Ferrari has fast-tracked some of its planned Budapest upgrades to be used this weekend at the Styrian Grand Prix.
Though Charles Leclerc salvaged an impressive second place at Sunday’s season opener in Austria, the scale of the problems facing the Scuderia remain huge as they were the sixth fastest team in qualifying.
The main issues appear to be a tremendous lack of top speed, with the SF1000 some 10kph down on the run to Turn 3 in qualifying than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.
“If I look at qualifying compared to the pole we are missing a second,” team boss Mattia Binotto said.
“Of the second, three-tenths in cornering, but then there is still seven-tenths on the power and I think that one will be very much difficult because the engine is frozen for the season.”
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Drag and stability though were other major problems with both Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel only just holding on the rear of the car in some moments.
Before the race weekend, Binotto revealed the first results of a new direction aerodynamically would be seen at the Hungarian GP on July 17-19.
But after seeing Vettel fail to make Q3 and Leclerc only just at the Red Bull Ring, that has forced the team into action.
“We have to respond immediately,” CEO Louis Camilleri was quoted by the BBC. “We know there’s lots of work to do. This is certainly not the grid position that a team like Ferrari should have.
“It’s clear that we have to improve on all fronts. The only solution is to react.”
The Ferrari boss though warned the changes would not magically reduce the huge gap to the front.
“I think that what we have seen in Austria is similar to Barcelona, we need to improve our car,” he said.
“There is some miscorrelation with the design, especially on the aero, that is the development we have started again, back from the lockdown, and that hopefully, we will have very soon at the race track.
“It will not be the final solution, there is no silver bullet, what’s important to us is to improve the type of behaviours.
“The drag is not something we are addressing very soon, so disappointing to see our speed on the straight so let’s analyse our data and see what we can do in the future.”