Ferrari drivers left frustrated by understeery SF24 in Monza qualifying
Despite fairly ordinary starting positions for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari drivers were left slightly disappointed as they had hoped for more after the performance shown during the practice sessions.
Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz looked strong and competitive all weekend long, but they have already suggested after Friday’s practice sessions that the heavily-upgraded SF-24 needed to be fine-tuned ahead of qualifying.
Asked to reflect on his qualifying day at Ferrari’s home turf, Leclerc said: “Disappointed. Yesterday it seemed like it was a positive day, today quite a bit less. P4 was the best we could do, but [it’s] frustrating.
“I don’t like fighting for these kinds of positions. We are very close to first place, on the contrary of last weekend which is a good step forward. However, it’s not enough, so I really hope that tomorrow we can turn the situation around.”
While it was not clear what Leclerc meant with the balance issues after Friday, the Monegasque has now elaborated on the issue, claiming that the SF24 has suffered from understeer all through the weekend.
“I mean, [in Turns] 1, 2, 4, 5 I’ve had so much understeer all weekend, so it’s not like it got worse,” the 26-year-old explained. “But it was just the same and I believe that the others maybe did a step forward that we didn’t do today, and that’s where we paid the price of being on pole or P4.”
On the other side of the garage, Carlos Sainz echoed Leclerc’s words, claiming that the understeer was the SF24’s main enemy in qualifying.
“I think we looked like the whole session we were just one tenth off – one tenth off, one tenth off, one tenth off.
“Maybe in Q3 when the track temperature dropped a bit with the clouds coming, it went away from us and we started to pick up a lot of understeer, and I couldn’t turn the car in the last two sectors.
“[It’s] a shame because I was quick in Sector 1 but I couldn’t quite make it work around Sector 2 and 3 with the understeer. I didn’t manage to put enough balance on the car to get around them. But, yeah, one tenth off – it is what it is.”
Pushed on whether he felt Ferrari might be able to show a better performance tomorrow and join the battle for podium places, the Spaniard noted: “Yeah, I think tomorrow is a completely different day.
“Graining is going to be the order of the day, everyone’s been struggling a lot with deg[radation] since yesterday so I think it’s going to be a very different Monza."
