Fred Vasseur is hoping Singapore will prove Ferrari is starting to better understand its maximum downforce issues after sacrificing first practice ahead of the recent Dutch Grand Prix.
Vasseur has confirmed the Scuderia used the hour-long session at Zandvoort to conduct tests given the problems the SF-23 has experienced at certain circuits this year.
Charles Leclerc emerged from that weekend a very frustrated figure, complaining that he had “zero idea” as to how the car would handle through each corner.
Following what Vasseur felt was Ferrari’s “best weekend” of the season on home soil around Monza given its unique low downforce characteristics, the team returns to the streets of Singapore where the car will again need to adapt to maximum downforce levels.
If Ferrari has been unable to apply the lessons learned from Zandvoort, then it promises to be another difficult weekend.
“We made a step forward in Zandvoort to understand the situation,” said Vasseur. “To understand is one thing, to fix it is another, but at least we are trying to have a better understanding of the situation.
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“We did a couple of tests in FP1 (ahead of the Dutch GP), sacrificing FP1 for testing for us to collect data to have a better vision of the situation.
“Now the next step is to fix it. It’s clear we don’t have a lot of track time to take steps, but at least understanding the problem is a step forward.”
Senior performance engineer Jock Clear has confirmed that as downforce is taken off the car “it becomes more and more competitive”.
That was clearly evident at Monza where Carlos Sainz and Leclerc were first and third in qualifying respectively before finishing third and fourth behind a Red Bull one-two, spearheaded by Max Verstappen.
Clear at least feels that off the back of Monza, there will be certain circuits where the car is “going to be much more competitive”.
But, with reference to Singapore, he added: “And they will be the ones where you’re not going to be running maximum downforce.
“We go to Singapore at maximum downforce. That’s not like we’re just going to give up on Singapore.
“There’s a lot we can do, learning from Zandvoort, about what we need to do with a car in Singapore.
“But that’s it. It’s not going to be a race we’re going to go and look at this level of performance (in Monza) straightaway unless we make some big improvements.”
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