Ferrari find no “extra performance” as they ditch recent F1 upgrade in a bid to solve woes

Ferrari have reverted back to their Imola-specification, abandoning their recent upgrade introduced in Barcelona, Carlos Sainz confirmed after qualifying for the F1 British Grand Prix.

Since introducing a sizable upgrade in Spain last month, Ferrari have taken a step backwards.

Their bouncing woes at high-speed have returned, resulting in a step back in the pecking order.

Ferrari have comfortably been F1’s fourth-fastest team in recent rounds amid Mercedes’ resurgence.

It was a similar story at Silverstone, but this time, Sainz was out-qualified by Haas Nico Hulkenberg, while Charles Leclerc was knocked out in Q2.

Speaking to media in the Silverstone paddock, where Crash.net are present, Sainz spoke about the decision to revert back to a previous specification.

“It hasn't given us any extra performance, it's just given us a little bit more consistency in the high-speed given we have a bit less bouncing on that floor and we need to make the car as consistent or predictable as possible in the high speed knowing that obviously, we're not going forwards or backwards, we're just making the are a bit more consistent,” Sainz explained.

Sainz revealed that it was a clear decision to revert back to the old upgrade with the new one resulting in excessive bouncing in the high-speed corners at Silverstone.

|Yes, like this. From the beginning of the year, we already had a bit of bouncing so, it is still an intrinsic weakness,” he added. 

“But the new one was clearly worse than the old one on Silverstone, I would say.”

Leclerc also addressed the change in package for Ferrari in qualifying.

He said: “It was a little bit better and that is the main reason why we came back to the old package.”

The Monegasque, who was within 40 points of Max Verstappen after his win on home soil, is confident Ferrari will be able to take the right decision to improve performance moving forward.

“Well, I won't go too much into detail but for sure we've lost some performance since Monaco, as a matter of fact, and we are looking into it,” he added. “That's also why we are doing all these tests.

“We came to the conclusion that it was the right choice to come back, for this weekend, mostly because of bouncing and we'll take the right decision for the future very soon. And what we've done yesterday was very helpful to help us take the right decision going forward.”