ANALYSIS: Telemetry shows that bouncing holds Ferrari back at Silverstone
Having performed a thorough comparison in Free Practice 1, the telemetry data shows that Ferrari's upgraded SF-24 suffers in the high-speed corners of the Silverstone track. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo analyses Ferrari's comparison run.
Teams usually decide ahead of the start of a season how they want to introduce their upgrades. While some outfits want to add upgraded parts on to their cars on a regular basis, there are other teams that intend to develop their cars with a comprehensive upgrade package.
McLaren belonged to the second group last year, and their upgrade packages proved to be successful in 2023. The Woking-based outfit changed to a different approach for the current season, and they regularly bring upgraded parts with Mercedes and Red Bull applying a similar approach.
Ferrari has pursued a different development path since the beginning of the season. The Italian outfit introduced a comprehensive host of upgrades in Imola and at Barcelona a few weeks ago.
While the Imola package delivered what Ferrari had hoped for, the Barcelona package seemingly moved the SF-24 outside its optimal working window.
After the Spanish round, Carlos Sainz indicated that bouncing might have caused Ferrari's woes in the high-speed corners of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
After the same issue hindered Ferrari at the Red Bull Ring a week ago, the Spaniard echoed his opinion from Spain, claiming that he and his team-mate Charles Leclerc were forced to lift off in the high-speed Turns 7 and 9 of the Styrian track so severe were the bouncing issues.
"We accept and we realise that since Barcelona, we have been less competitive than before Barcelona.
"This obviously raises our concerns on the package a bit and we need to try to understand as much as possible everything involved with it. Bouncing 100% costs you time. What I think is that it costs you even more time than what you think," Sainz said.
Ferrari arrived with a clear plan in Silverstone. The team was intent on performing a comparison between the old and the new package with Leclerc running the Barcelona-spec SF-24 and Sainz using the Imola-spec car in the opening 60-minute practice.
While"the upgrade is working the way it should be", Leclerc said that "it's more about where you run the car to optimise those numbers that we see."
The question marks prompted Ferrari to carry out a thorough on-track inspection in the opening practice at the British Grand Prix. The data provided by Formula Data Analysis clearly shows that Sainz was quicker in the high-speed corners of the Silverstone track.
It confirms that the upgraded car suffers in the high-speed sections, and Leclerc cannot carry through the same speed that Sainz is able to achieve in the high-speed corners. In turn, the Monegasque gained time on his Spanish team-mate in the slow-speed corners.
Leclerc was not even able to use 8th gear through the high-speed Copse turn while Sainz completed this corner in the highest gear.
The analysis of the telemetry data was confirmed by the SF-24’s behaviour as the car was nervous and unpredictable through the high-speed sections of Copse, Maggots, Becketts and particularly into Chapel.
