After another disappointing race for Ferrari, team boss Maurizio Arrivabene has stated that the Italian car hasn’t had much improvement in its downforce since the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
In today’s German Grand Prix the two Ferraris finished a distant fifth and sixth, both more than half a minute off the victor Lewis Hamilton. The team as a result also fell behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.
And when asked to explain why the Ferraris had apparently slipped away from the pace since early in the season, Arrivabene pinpointed downforce.
“If I look at the situation now, and I go back, we don’t have great improvement in terms of downforce since Barcelona” he admitted. “That is the problem, this is why I say we clearly know where to work now and we have to do it as soon as possible, even if it’s not easy.”
Arrivabene added that he was confident that the team knew specifically what the problem was. “There are many many factors, we have done an analysis and now everything is quite clear about the reason why.”
Arrivabene was more coy however about when things were likely to improve for the Scuderia on track, and said the forthcoming summer shutdown was inconveniently timed for the team’s hopes of improvement.
“Engine we have something [a development] which is coming, I’m quite comfortable with the engine, but you know the aero development is going to be stopped for the FIA stop [summer shutdown], so that’s no development time now, and after the stop we need to use it to solve in short term where the problems are.”