Ferrari has ruled out a B-spec car concept change for its Formula 1 car this year, despite suggestions from Carlos Sainz that a major rethink needed to be considered.
The Italian squad has endured its worst start to a Formula 1 season since 2009, when it failed to score a single point in the first three races of the campaign.
His lack of performance compared to the Red Bull pace setter led to Sainz suggesting at the Australian Grand Prix that he needed a change of direction.
“At the moment Red Bull is superior everywhere,” said Sainz. “It’s superior in quality, in racing, in straight line speed.
“They’re superior in mid/low speed cornering, they’re superior with tire management, they’re superior on curbs and bumps. It just shows that we clearly need to change something.
“We have to go and check something very different from where we are now. I think the extremely good performance at the start of last season made us, I think, continue to move forward with this concept, with this car project.
“But I think we now realize that Red Bull has a clear advantage everywhere and that we have to start looking to our right and to our left.”
But while there have been rumors in recent weeks that Ferrari was ready to undertake radical changes, including a change to the sidepod concept, such a move has been dismissed by team principal Fred Vasseur.
Instead, Vasseur says the team’s plan is for three stages of upgrades over the next few months that he hopes will be enough to make a difference.
Asked by Motorsport.com if a concept change was imminent, Vasseur said: “No, I don’t think so.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Ferrari
“We have a stream of updates coming, not for Baku, because we have the aerodynamic package for the level of downforce, and with the sprint race it’s not the easiest, but for Miami, Imola, not Monaco and Barcelona .At each race, we will have a car update.
“We’re sticking to the plan. We’ve made some adjustments in terms of balance and behaviour, and it was much better in Melbourne, and we’ll continue in that direction.
“It’s not a B car if that’s what you mean. We’re not going to come up with something completely different. We’re going to keep updating this one and try to update it massively.”
Vasseur explained that the restrictions teams faced with F1’s cost cap and wind tunnel hours meant that changing concepts at this stage of the season was too difficult a task.
“Doing a new project during the season, starting from scratch, making a new car within the cost limit, but also taking into account the time constraint of the wind tunnel, I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but it’s very difficult.
“Also, for our part, we have the feeling, and I hope we are right, that we are going in the right direction, that we still have a lot of room for improvement in the car.
“It means as long as we’re still able to develop the car to achieve that [downforce] points, and the aero to get better balance, to get better stability, and so I think it makes sense to move in that direction.”
Ferrari’s preferred response to its difficult start to 2023 is to speed up the introduction of planned updates, rather than do something different with its car and start from scratch.
Vasseur added: “You always have a development plan before the season, and then you have to react to the circumstances, to the competitiveness of the car and to the behavior of the car. We took action very quickly.
“We’ve brought some good upgrades to Melbourne, and we’ll continue to. What we can do is push to try to speed up that process, maybe take a slightly different direction in terms of balance and so on.
“But we can’t massively change the plan after three races and say, ‘OK, we have to go in another direction’.”
But while a major concept change has been ruled out for this season, Vasseur is open-minded that the team may need to take a different route with its 2024 car if things don’t improve.
“The question is [really] on the cost cap — whether you want to carry over or not,” he said. “And what parts do you want to carry over from one season to the next, like the big gearbox components or the monocoque? It is a question that we will have to manage with the cost limit.
“With the development strategy, I think we have some good updates. And we’ll see later in the season if we want to make a continuous improvement of that, and we have room for improvement, or if we have to change more. massively the direction. That we’ll see much later.”
Additional reporting by Alex Kalinauckas
