According to the Italian branch of Motorsport.com, Ferrari is struggling with correlation issues between the wind tunnel and reality. The team reportedly saw little resemblance to the promising results from simulations at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Thus, the already troubled Ferrari team seems to be facing yet another new challenge.
Although Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, among others, has previously indicated that the development potential of the Ferrari concept is lower than that of Red Bull Racing's RB19, Frédéric Vasseur, who was appointed as the new team principal last winter, has repeatedly expressed his confidence in the SF-23. However, last weekend, Ferrari seemed to take a step towards the Red Bull concept with its new sidepods.
For Charles Leclerc, it turned out to be a dramatic weekend. The Monegasque driver qualified on the last row of the grid on Saturday, and on Sunday, the decision was made to start from the pit lane after the rear of his Ferrari car was replaced because Leclerc was convinced that something was not right with his car. It didn't yield any points, as even a time penalty for Yuki Tsunoda was not enough to promote Leclerc to a top-ten finish. On the other side of the garage, Carlos Sainz had a much better Saturday, securing the second spot on the grid, but on Sunday, he also witnessed both Red Bull and Mercedes being much faster.
According to Motorsport.com, in the wind tunnel, the team found twelve load points, which would translate to a three to four-tenths time gain per lap. However, they didn't see any of that improvement on the track. "The captain is trying to maintain control of his ship in the eye of the storm. He has the helm, but it's difficult to say if he's heading in the right direction. He doesn't accept that the SF-23 is a bad car and insists on further developing it, even though this car seems worse than the one we saw up until Monaco."
Vasseur hopes to use the Pirelli test days to gain insights into the car's potential. "It is true that the SF-23 must remain in the same configuration throughout the day to allow the Pirelli guys to analyze the behavior of the different tires. However, yesterday Leclerc covered two and a half race distances, gathering a lot of data on how the upgrades work. Today, Sainz will repeat the same," according to Motorsport Italia.