With the team working on a major overhaul that will begin rolling out for the Hungarian Grand Prix, team principal Mattia Binotto spoke on Friday about what went wrong at his job over the winter.
After making the decision to strive to increase downforce, Binotto said it meant the car was not as robust in aerodynamic performance as was necessary to bring the fight to Mercedes and Red Bull.
“In winter testing, the car was not working as expected,” he said, when asked by Motorsport.com to explain his findings early.
“The car on the track was not working as we saw in the design we did at home, so there was a bad correlation between the design and the track.
“Obviously, we had to understand it first. We began to try to understand it as soon as we returned home to the factory, and during the closing period it was not possible. I think we realized that, from a primarily aerodynamic point of view, there were some erroneous correlations.
“Eventually I think we [realised we] It gave a lot of impetus to our project, trying to find a lot of downforce to raise our situation last year in terms of weaknesses. I think eventually everything we developed was too fragile in terms of aerodynamic robustness when we were on the track. “
Binotto suggested that there would be an upgrade program aimed at changing the car’s performance, with just the first step for the Hungaroring race later this month.
“What we are trying to do now is simply step back, try to understand, reevaluate the problem, and move forward later.
“Our hope is to bring some developments already in Hungary, nothing before. And hopefully, for Hungary, we will not address all of our problems, but we will take a definitive step in our performance. I think by then, we can understand where we are compared to our main competitors. “
