Ferrari joined Red Bull in making changes to its car on the Saturday in Brazil as the team sought to elevate its performance.
But unlike Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who raced from the pit lane to P3 after his team changed his RB21’s floor, Ferrari wasn’t able to capitalise.
Ferrari mix it up…
Ferrari joined Red Bull in looking to make changes to its car in order to elevate its performance from the Sprint portion of the weekend going into the race, as they intervened on both their aerodynamic configuration and cooling solutions.
The changes made to the SF-25 between the conclusion of the Sprint and the start of Qualifying on Saturday were an attempt to boost performance over one lap, but also improve matters for Sunday.
The most obvious of these alterations was to downforce level, with the team opting for a different rear wing configuration for the remainder of the weekend having run the higher downforce option during the Sprint portion of the event.
The team had already gained some data in this regard on Friday though, having used the lower downforce, spoon-shaped rear wing assembly on Hamilton’s car during FP1.
In terms of its cooling, Ferrari had opted for an asymmetric layout in Brazil, with a four-louvre arrangement on the left-hand side of the SF-25 and three louvres on the right-hand side of the engine cover during the Sprint portion of the weekend.
However, when it came to qualifying, they’d decided to reduce their cooling capacity, switching to a three and two louvre arrangement, on the left and right-hand side of the car, respectively.
The changes helped Charles Leclerc qualify third for the grand prix, up on eight in Sprint quali, but for Lewis Hamilton it was another wretched out as he finished in 13th place.
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It all came to nought for Ferrari in the grand prix,; Leclerc punted out of the race by Kimi Antonelli who had contact with Oscar Piastri, while a collision with Franco Colapinto damaged Hamilton’s car.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur believes the changes to the car worked for Ferrari, even though the team was not able to capitalise on it.
“It was a difficult day,” he told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “But we can still look for the positives, such as the race pace we showed.
“I think our pace was decent, and even in qualifying, we weren’t actually too far off.
“There are a lot of ups and downs, both for us and for everyone else. Looking at the pace we had, it’s hard to imagine what we could have achieved, but I believe we were strong enough to do a good job.”
Ferrari is now fourth in the Constructors’ standings, 36 points behind Mercedes and four points behind Red Bull Racing.
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