Ferrari’s double retirement from Formula 1’s Dutch Grand Prix brought a miserable end to a weekend that had started out badly, with one of the worst practice days the squad had had in years.
A mistake from Lewis Hamilton that put him in the wall at Turn 3, followed later with Charles Leclerc getting taken out by Kimi Antonelli in the exact same banked corner, was another one-two punch in the guts in a campaign that has delivered its fair share of them already.
While team boss Fred Vasseur was doing his best to try to see the positives of a weekend where he felt the team had the potential to challenge Red Bull for a podium finish, the silver-lining-among-the-dark-clouds approach was not shared by everyone in the team.
For Leclerc in particular, Zandvoort had further exposed areas of improvement that still had to be made – especially with the team having put itself on the back foot by being so out of sorts throughout Friday.
“We can see positives in every situation, but I would rather look at it as a very, very disappointing weekend,” said Leclerc after the race.
“We've been struggling from FP1 to quali. In the race it's been better, but especially after the holidays, to have a Friday like we had, we cannot afford to have any other Friday like that, because that definitely has an influence on the rest of the weekend.”
Hungary fallout
Ferrari had arrived at the Dutch GP off the back of its rollercoaster weekend in Hungary – where Leclerc’s pole position and then pace collapse in the final stint had told us an awful lot about the strengths and weaknesses of its package.
Confirmation which came in Zandvoort, about alterations made in the final stop at the Hungaroring (almost certainly with regards to tyre pressures and front wing settings) being what put Leclerc totally out of balance, highlighted how Ferrari is continuing to battle problematic elements on its car.
While it was not saying so itself, the only logical explanation for the change in tyre pressures in the final stint was that it was trying to raise the car a little and protect the plank – which has been a bugbear for the squad ever since the Chinese GP.
The Ferrari SF-25 appears to be happiest when it is running super low to the ground, but at high-speeds – either at the end of straights or in quick corners – downforce pushes the car down and its plank is striking the ground.
If that happens excessively in a race then the plank wears away too much, and that results in the kind of disqualification that Hamilton suffered in China.
Ever since Shanghai, Ferrari has had to make compromises with where it pitches its car and how it manages the situation.
Raising tyre pressures each stop, asking drivers to steer clear of bumps or lift and coast in fast sections, plus even changing engine maps to reduce speed at the end of straights, have all been employed as tools to help its cause.
The revised rear suspension that Ferrari brought to the Belgian Grand Prix was aimed at helping address this issue – and both Leclerc and Hamilton seemed to get themselves in a slightly happier place with it.
However, Hungary had exposed that even if things had improved, the over-arching problems that have hung over the team since the start of the season have not been banished entirely.
On Thursday, Leclerc marked all the elements that he was battling with in Hungary as more “complex” than simply needing to look after the plank.
“I think that it will be around still, but we are trying to fix them and to deal with them in a different manner,” he said.
Zandvoort has everything Ferrari hates
Whether Ferrari’s disastrous Friday in Zandvoort was a consequence of it trying a different approach is not clear, but the weekend did deliver some mixed messages about where the SF-25 is at.
On the timing sheets things did not look great, with Leclerc lining up sixth and Hamilton one place behind him.
But the deficit appeared to be more a track characteristic issue than anything else – with the Ferrari especially weak in Turns 9 and 10.
A comparison of Leclerc and Max Verstappen’s best Q3 laps shows that up until Turn 7 they are pretty evenly matched. Through Turn 8 Leclerc loses around one tenth, before he drops a full four tenths in Turns 9 and 10 alone. That deficit is then stable until the end of the lap.
Leclerc said that long-duration corners like Turns 9 and 10 at Zandvoort are exactly what the Ferrari does not like.
“I think this track has everything that our car hates,” he said.
Race pace, however, was much more encouraging – even if neither Leclerc nor Hamilton had enough clean air to every truly show their full full speed.
Vasseur said it was hard to gauge what Ferrari’s true potential had been, with both its cars stuck in trains before needing to back off and find clear air to avoid overheating.
“I have the feeling, although we were not on the same strategy, that we were matching Max more or less,” Vasseur said.
“The pace was very, very strong and very consistent. The only reference I would say is Mercedes, because we were alone with Mercedes and we were able to overtake Mercedes.
“I think it's more on this one that we can make a comparison now to know if we were able to do one or two or three tenths more.”
Hamilton progress
One thing that does appear to have changed for the better, even if the weekend ended in a low, is that Hamilton appears to be much more comfortable with where things are at.
The back-to-back troubled weekends in Belgium and Hungary had left him quite down, but the reinvigoration of the summer break and some change in processes and approach of working with the team had allowed him to hit the ground running.
This was why the uncharacteristic mistake that put him out hurt so much.
“It's been a really solid weekend,” he said. “I feel like I've made progress, just overall in my approach and everything. So, to come away with that [the crash] is definitely painful.”
Vasseur too praised the contribution that both Hamilton and Leclerc had made in getting Ferrari's weekend back on track after that troubled Friday – which he labelled “the worst Friday of the last three years” where “nothing worked at all.”
Home ground uncertainty
The pressure on Ferrari to deliver to its best will never be more intense than on its home turf in Monza this weekend.
Leclerc won there last year, but this time Ferrari heads to Monza seeking answers about whether the track’s high-speed nature will expose its plank Achilles' heel or whether the low-downforce nature of the venue can help it better control its platform.
Leclerc added: “I would think that Monza is more positive. Whether it's a track where we can target a win, I don't think so, because I still think McLaren is going to be incredible there.
“But never say never. Last year I would've never thought that we could fight for a win. Let's see.”
