F1: After the sixth failure, Hamilton and Leclerc do not expect much from the new floor of Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton e Charles Leclerc they are not expecting the new floor on the Ferrari to bring significant competitiveness to the team, following a quiet Friday at the Austrian GP Formula 1 .
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F1 ANALYSIS: What is Ferrari Seeking with Floor Updates at the Austrian GP?
A Ferrari brought a completely redesigned floor to the Red Bull Ring, with changes to the body, edges, and floor wing, as well as a reengineered diffuser. The team expects that the new design will provide additional aerodynamic downforce at different curve speeds, resulting in a performance gain in all conditions.
Although Leclerc has shown good race pace in simulations, the performance gain seems insignificant in quick laps. The Monegasque was six tenths behind the leader Lando Norris , losing most of the time in the fast turns 6 and 7 of the Red Bull Ring, due to lower corner speed. Hamilton was three-tenths of a second behind, being better in the acceleration zones in slow turns, but losing time in other parts of the circuit.
Neither of the two drivers had a trouble-free free practice session. Leclerc missed FP1 to make way for the rookie. Dino Beganovic , while Hamilton had gearbox issues right from the start. Despite this, Leclerc downplayed the absence from the first session, but reported discomfort in FP2 with some off-track moments.
The TL1 didn't really compromise the TL2. I felt relatively at ease on the track from the beginning, but not very comfortable with the car's behavior," said Leclerc. "There's quite a bit of work to be done for tomorrow. It still doesn't seem like performance is where it should be, but I hope we can take a step forward.
Our long stints seem good. We were very close to the fastest ones. But the problem is that everything is too tight, so if you start in P6 or P7, it becomes extremely difficult to recover positions during the race. In qualifying, we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Leclerc said that the new floor delivered the expected aerodynamic numbers, but it's hard to feel a difference at the wheel: "It's very difficult for me to make any comments," he said. "People expect that, as a driver, you come in with a new part and, boom, the car immediately becomes much faster. But we're talking about very subtle gains. And if you don't do the TL1 and don't have a reference, it's hard to feel anything. But in terms of numbers, the component delivers what was expected and I'm satisfied with that."
Hamilton praised the team for delivering the new floor and solving the problem with the gearbox in time for FP2, but also acknowledged that Friday's performance was "nothing spectacular" for Ferrari.
We had a gearshift problem in the morning, which was obviously difficult and frustrating for everyone in the garage, but the guys did a great job, they kept trying," explained the seven-time world champion. "But you go out and can only do one lap, so we didn't do the long stints. I think we recovered reasonably well. They did a great job changing the gearbox and preparing us for TL2.
"Mr. Charles was six tenths behind and I was almost a second, so it's not ideal. We'll make some changes and try to get a bit closer, but we won't be in front. A huge effort was made to bring this new floor, but as you can see, it doesn't necessarily change our competitiveness. The car actually doesn't seem bad. We're just too far behind in terms of pace," he concluded.
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