Following Lewis Hamilton’s comments on the SF-25, Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has addressed the team’s decision to make a compromise.
After qualifying in Suzuka, Hamilton explained that the crew had to boost the car’s ride height to avoid the skid-block touching the track, which contributed to Hamilton’s disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix.
With ground-effect vehicles, any increase in ride height has an impact on performance, with Ferrari presently fourth in the constructors’ championship with 35 points, 76 behind leaders McLaren.
Asked about the problem, Vasseur explained how the team was trying to push the limit of the rules, but naturally is wary of risking a further disqualification. “For sure, we all want to run the car lower and we all want to have more downforce in this situation, it would be better, but there is a limit,” Vasseur told media including RacingNews365. “But there is a limit, the limit is bottoming and the limit is also the regulations. ” We are all spending the weekend finding what the limit is, where we can run the car a bit lower but then you are too low.
“It is the same for everyone, and we all know that car performance is heavily influenced by ride height; this has been true for us and everyone else in recent years.”
“We were disqualified [at the 2023 United States Grand Prix] with Leclerc and Mercedes [Hamilton] for attempting to reach the same point.
“It is not a characteristic of the car this year or of Ferrari; it applies to all teams.
“In the last two years, we started like this, which is not ideal. We would love to win rather than finish fifth, that is apparent.
“But we don’t have to adjust our strategy; compared to a year ago, we were practically in the same scenario, if not slightly worse in terms of pace.
“And the team reacted really strongly. We worked as a team and took tiny steps.
