Ferrari will be looking to bring regular upgrades from the May 7 Miami Grand Prix onwards, with only Monaco not likely to see new parts.
Red Bull has dominated the first three races of the season leading to an admission from Mercedes that it got its car concept wrong and is investigating a new direction to try and close the gap. For Ferrari, team principal Fred Vasseur says the team is sticking with the same path it had outlined earlier this year despite having yet to finish on the podium, with new parts coming in quick succession during upcoming races.
“I think we have a flow of updates that will come (soon) — not for Baku, because in Baku we have the aero package for the level of downforce, but with the sprint race, it’s not the easiest one,” Vasseur said. “But for Miami, Imola and Barcelona at each race we will have an update on the car. We are sticking to the plan.
“We made some adjustments I think in terms of balance and behavior and it was much better in Melbourne and it will continue on this direction. It’s not a B-car — we won’t come with something completely different, we will continue to update this one and we will try to update massively.”
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Vasseur says there remains the raw pace in the Ferrari to put pressure on Red Bull over one lap, but that finding a way of making the car more predictable to drive nearer its limit in race trim is the main differentiator so far this year.
“It’s true that, in the first three events we always had the feeling that we are not far away and able to fight for the first row with them in qualifying and it was more difficult in the race. From the numbers we are able to analyze, the advantage in the race was much lower, and I think this is also coming from the capacity of the driver to drive the car on the limit with different levels of fuel, different tires, and so on.
“If you have a car that is a bit too peaky, you can probably manage the situation in quali for one lap with new tires. You know the balance after five set of soft tires. But over the race (distance) it is probably a little bit more difficult and we took this direction over the last couple of weeks.”