Ferrari wary of ‘next banana skin’ after finally solving frustrating SF-24 problem

Ferrari senior performance engineer Jock Clear fears the “next banana skin” could be just around the corner despite getting the SF-24’s bouncing problems under control.

The second fastest team in the early rounds of F1 2024, Ferrari were Red Bull’s main rivals as Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix before Charles Leclerc stood on the top step of the podium in Monaco.

Ferrari waiting for ‘next banana skin’ in F1 2024

But two races later they introduced an upgrade at the Spanish Grand Prix that set them back as it reintroduced bouncing to Ferrari’s F1 car.

It forced Ferrari to roll back on their upgrades with Sainz revealing the full extent of the damage as the reverted to their Imola spec five races later in Silverstone.

“We have basically the same car as in Imola and since Imola everyone has upgraded, probably added two tenths to the car and we have had to revert,” he said.

“We have lost two or three months of performance gain in the wind tunnel or performance we could have added in these three months.”

However, the Scuderia’s more recent upgrades appear to have been steps forward with a new floor as well as revised sidepods introduced at Monza, which was won by Leclerc. It also seems to have eradicated the SF-24’s high-speed bouncing.

F1 2024: Ferrari team-mate head-to-head

?F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

?F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

“You’re never fully confident,” Clear said. “But I think it’s a good picture of how the ebb and flow of everybody’s development goes.

“But you’re probably asking the same questions to [other teams] – have you lost your way?

“And certainly after Spain, we didn’t feel we’d lost our way, but there was some anomaly between what was happening in the tunnel and what we were seeing on track, and we had to get on top of that.

“That’s just the process; when you see an anomaly, you have to get on top of it, try and understand it, and then get back on track.”

But while Ferrari have resolved that anomaly, Clear admits another could be right around the corner.

“We just have to be eyes wide open for what the next anomaly will be, because there will be another one because that is the process at the moment,” Clear explained.

“So it’s not that sometimes the development works, sometimes these developments don’t work: the development process is exactly that you are testing something new every week.

“We’re confident that our process is working, confident that we’re on top of everything. We’ll just wait for the next banana skin.”

Ferrari are third in the Constructors’ Championship with 441 points on the board, only 34 behind Red Bull with McLaren leading on 516.

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