At the Monaco GP in May, Charles Leclerc and the Scuderia Ferrari team celebrated a stunning victory in the most prestigious race of the year, a victory that dispelled some ghosts for Leclerc after a string of misfortunes at his home race. After achieving some positive results in the first half of the year, including a win for Carlos Sainz in Australia, it looked at the time that the Red Racing team would be a formidable rival to the hitherto dominant Red Bull. that time – despite McLaren’s sublime form which saw Lando Norris win at Miami and Oscar Piastri chase Leclerc to the finish line at Monaco. However since then things have gotten worse. Over the weekend’s four races, Leclerc’s only score in a GP was fifth in Spain, while Sainz had a better result, although his only third place on the podium was in Austria after the Norris/Verstappen clash gave him two positions.

For Leclerc specifically, it was a perfect storm of circumstances, with engine problems and a disastrous slick tire bet in the rain in Canada, a broken wing in the first round in Austria, then a qualifying round poor and another poor tire choice at Silverstone. Sainz had a little less luck, although he did lose a wheel in Canada. That weekend in Montreal saw both riders struggle for speed at what could have been an odd location. What really hit them back then was an aerodynamic package introduced in Spain that promised a lot on paper, but in reality set them back. At both Barcelona and Spielberg, the SF-24 bounced at high speeds , a phenomenon that hasn’t been talked about much this season but which Ferrari discovered can still happen if you don’t calculate it correctly.

This was so evident on Leclerc’s car at the start of the Silverstone race that it was decided on Saturday to return both cars to the package first used in May at Imola, to have something more consistent and give them more confidence. That Imola spec is only a few months old but, in the current F1 development race, taking a step back while everyone else is piling on new bits and making small strides is no different What a disaster in terms of lap times. With rain in FP3 leaving less time to prepare for Silverstone qualifying, it was especially difficult for Leclerc, who ran the newer bits on Friday, while Sainz had the older version. With the complexity of the sport today, upgrades not going as planned is something teams occasionally encounter. Mercedes is now on the rise but only after a few miserable years, while this year Aston Martin is also struggling to increase performance with upgrades. “Obviously not good enough,” Sainz said when Motor Sport asked him about the current situation. “Basically, we have the same car as in Imola.

“Since Imola, everyone has upgraded and they have probably added a few tenths to the car, whereas we had to go back and it took us two or three months to increase performance in the wind tunnel and performance that we were able to increase further during these three months. “Obviously we haven’t made the right decisions recently, but I felt today at least going back to the basic approach, going back to the car that we know is okay at Imola, and we just need to upgrade it from here. But unfortunately, it was clear that our competitors were one step ahead of us.” The frustration for all involved is that for at least the past year, Ferrari’s upgrades have been up to the task. “Over the last 16 months, all the upgrades we’ve brought in have correlated very, very well with what we’ve done in the wind tunnel,” said team boss Fred Vasseur.  “I think one of the assets of the team last year was bringing in some small upgrades. And each time it worked. This time, we have a problem, but not because we had a problem when the world ended.” The problem is that with the current generation of cars, the wind tunnel doesn’t always tell you what will happen when the car is on the track.

“The downforce correlation is fine,” Vasseur emphasized. “I think it’s still a question mark for everyone [all the teams on the grid], that sometimes the bounce comes up like this, and it’s quite difficult to have a correlation, because you don’t there is bounce in the wind tunnel. “I don’t want to go into details, but we all have the numbers. You might expect that you’ll get more bounce with one part than another, but as to whether it has a negative impact on performance, that’s another story. “We changed the aerodynamics and the bouncing phenomenon appeared in Spain. To fix it, you have dozens of solutions. You have solutions that compromise performance. You have solutions that do not compromise on performance, develop new packages. “And I think we’re already there. We will probably have to tackle the next race with the current car, and as soon as possible we will bring out an upgrade with less bounce.”

At Silverstone, the team took one step back to take two steps forward, and with 12 races remaining, there is still plenty of time to regain positions. “I think we had the exact same situation as last year, almost the same stage of the season,” Vasseur said. “Silverstone, Budapest, Spa, and we stopped at Zandvoort to scan the whole situation. And we recovered well, because weeks later, we were there. “What’s difficult about this situation is that when you have a problem, you don’t have the test, I mean the right test, to fix or at least understand the problem. And sometimes, as a team, it’s hard to compromise or sacrifice Friday sessions when you know you’re going to take some time over the weekend and say, okay, forget FP1, FP2, let’s focus on the midterm.

“And believe me, this decision for the team was very difficult. It meant we put ourselves in a difficult position, but we knew this coming, and it was even worse when on Saturday morning [at Silverstone] the tires were wet. “That certainly doesn’t help. But it’s the same. We made the decision before the weekend, and I think it was the right decision to make.” The next race in Hungary is an interesting case, as it is a slow track with only a few fast turns. The newer package may be faster around the circuit. “We will have to have an in-depth analysis by the end of the week,” Vasseur said. “And consider the fact that Silverstone is the most aggressive track in terms of bounce, with very high-speed corners and so on. But we will have time to discuss and decide for Budapest.”

In fact, the Frenchman is optimistic about what the team can achieve from testing at Silverstone. “It’s difficult to say after today’s result, but I think we improved this weekend,” he said. “At least technically, we had a much better understanding of the situation on Sunday night, compared to Friday morning, and this, I think, is encouraging for the final stretch of the season. Leclerc’s recent troubles are not just related to the car’s handling characteristics, and the last thing he needs at Silverstone is a pitstop call that puts him out of the race completely. “Very difficult, very difficult,” the Monaco driver said when Motor Sport spoke to him after the race. “I mean, I don’t really have the words to describe it, but it’s been four races where things have been worse than a nightmare. So I hope we can be back soon. “It’s very difficult to look at the positives on days like these. I just want to get back to the team, and we’ll analyze how we made those decisions on my part, and why we were on the wrong side today.”

Despite his disappointment, he admitted that the team made the right decision to temporarily hold off on new parts. “This is a difficult situation we are facing at the moment. The upgrade gave us the numbers we expected, but also gave us quite a bit of bounce at high speeds, and for a track like this, we decided that there was It’s probably better to have a little less performance, but more consistency. “Going forward, we will analyze all the data we have so far with these two packages and try to find out if there is anything we don’t understand about the new package.” Failed upgrades and botched hole plays can make people think the team is losing its way in different aspects. In this case, however, the two are actually related, as Leclerc was hurt by just returning to his old pack on Saturday and suffered in qualifying. He has to take risks.

“I think the car in the last two races at least was not easy to drive, and it demanded a lot from the drivers,” Vasseur said. “Charles got the new package on Friday. We didn’t do FP3 in the rain, and he had to qualify with a car he had never driven before. And he was in very good shape until Lap 13, and he was faster than Russell until Lap 13. “I think we’re really at the limit of the car, We’re making more mistakes, probably, than when it was under control. It’s true that as soon as you have some kind of bad motivation, you have the feeling that you have to compensate. And this is an error from the team, from the riders, from everyone, because you cannot compensate.

“Basically, you have to stay at the limit. Meaning if something doesn’t go very well, you can’t do more than you did before. I think that’s part of the reason for the call for strategy. “Starting in P11, he had a very good start, but he fell behind Stroll. He lost Stroll by 10 seconds. And at one stage, when you’re 15 seconds behind Carlos or Verstappen, you know that if you don’t do something big, you won’t come back. And that’s probably part of the problem.” The metaphor for Ferrari’s current difficulties is that they have abandoned the team behind Lewis Hamilton’s resurgent Mercedes driver, who heads to Maranello next year. The timing of the departure of technical director Enrique Cardile, who is headed to Aston, is also a bit unfortunate. But with Hungary offering the prospect of improvement, and Vasseur remaining optimistic, there is no need for the former champion or his fans to worry.