As we have seen in recent races, Ferrari’s position on the podium is being compromised by McLaren taking up space. To add to that, they went ahead and beat Max Verstappen in a race where the three-time world champion could not keep up with the McLaren upgrades. Charles Leclerc finished third in the Miami GP followed by Carlos Sainz at fifth. Although Ferrari is P2 in the constructors championship, McLaren is catching up, already sitting pretty at third place. So what will the Prancing Horse do to keep McLaren behind them?
McLaren has recently started their implementation of a two-phase upgrade for their car. Ferrari, on the other hand, will not be complacent, but instead has decided to up their game too. According to a recent update, Auto Motor und Sport’s Michael Schmidt has reported Ferrari’s plans to take the SF-24 to the next level.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz prepare for new upgrades
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Michael Schmidt reported Ferrari to be going for an overhaul that helps them close the gap between Red Bull and themselves. Currently, McLaren has been closely creeping up on them and to remain competitive, it’s time for big upgrades. Schmidt announced that the Maranello outfit is looking to work on their car’s performance around slow corners, an area they have been struggling with.
⚠️| Michael Schmidt de #AMuS dió más información sobre la actualización del SF-24 2.0:
– Mejorará el rendimiento en curvas lentas.
– Tendrá ajustes mecánicos y redistribución de peso.
– Probables modificaciones en la geometría de la suspensión como lo hizo McLaren. pic.twitter.com/exymKRPAUx— Tifoso Latino (@tifoso_latino) May 7, 2024
Ferrari’s 2.0 car will also get some mechanical adjustments and weight redistribution calibration. The team is working hard on bringing the car up to speed with the upgrades that McLaren has implemented leading to their drivers leading the race and one of them winning it. The final modification that the Prancing Horse will be implementing is an upgrade to the suspension geometry, as McLaren did.
Ferrari is on a mission to beat the world championship and the team is doing everything they can to make it happen. There will be small upgrades throughout the season until they get the formula right, but it will really be next year, that we get to see what they have been cooking. But for now, let’s reflect on what both the drivers had to say after the Miami Grand Prix.
Ferrari driver’s take from the Miami Grand Prix
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc might not have had their worst race so far, but it’s definitely not their worst. Both of them are Grand Prix winners and coming to anything but the top of the podium is not the outcome they want. Coming in P3 and P5 is not bad as they did score 25 points in total, but Lando Norris did that alone for McLaren.
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After the race, Charles Leclerc shared his experience saying, “Today we were again missing a little bit of pace, but we did our best. Obviously we have been unlucky with the Safety Car. The timing of the Safety Car wasn’t great for us, then we ended up having the oldest tyres of all the guys at the front. But we managed everything quite well, so P3 was the best we could do and we should be satisfied with that.”
On the other hand, Carlos Sainz was not this optimistic about his experience as he explained, “If we could have extended for one more lap we could have won this race like Lando did, because we boxed just one lap before the Safety Car and we were ahead of Lando at the time so a bit frustrated there again.”
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Both the drivers raised the issue of the Safety car not benefitting them as it did with Lando Norris. However, this is all a part of racing and ultimately they should be happy with the results and learn. With that said, do you think Ferrari’s new upgrades will be able to steal victories away from Max Verstappen this season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.