Carlos Sainz reveals worrying consequence of Ferrari’s Spanish upgrade for the SF-24

Carlos Sainz puts in a lap at the Red Bull Ring

Qualifying fourth for the Austrian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz is concerned that Ferrari’s Spanish upgrade is to blame for their high-speed bouncing troubles.

Ferrari arrived at the Barcelona circuit last week with several new parts for the SF-24, including a new floor, and both Sainz and Charles Leclerc found themselves porpoising at high speeds.

Carlos Sainz reveals bouncing is back after Ferrari’s Spanish upgrade

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Compromising Ferrari’s speed in the high-speed sections, they were unable to challenge for the podium and also fell behind Mercedes in the pecking order.

It was more of the same at the Red Bull Ring where Sainz’s P4 in qualifying put him behind George Russell on the grid, the Spaniard reporting that he had “picked up a lot of bouncing”.

Sainz has not ruled out Ferrari’s Spanish GP upgrade being the cause of the problem.

“I think we see it working in all the places where we have no bouncing, but then if you trigger bouncing in the high-speed and you have to back off, then maybe what you win in some places you lose in the other,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com.

“And the more high-speed content there is at a track, obviously that trade goes towards being worse for that circuit because the more high-speed you have, obviously the slower you are.

“It is not ideal, but the team is pushing flat out back at home to try and solve the issue and see how we can come back stronger in Silverstone.”

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Sainz fears the porpoising in the high-speed sections could exacerbate the SF-24’s biggest weakness which is high-speed corners.

“Without going too much into detail, I think it’s a combination of we’re not good in high-speed corners and, at the same time, we are bouncing which makes our high-speed exaggeratedly slow,” he said.

“So here Turn 7, Turn 9, we lose a tenth from Max in each of the corners, only in one corner and it’s very difficult to crawl that back. The rest of the track we are almost equal in the slow speed.

“But we’re working already back at home to try and understand this new package and the bouncing that we have with it, and how we can improve it for Silverstone.”

Sainz will line up P4 on the Austrian Grand Prix grid with his team-mate Leclerc sixth after a moment at Turn 4 on his final flying lap.