Ferrari will give Sebastian Vettel a new chassis at the Spanish Grand Prix after spotting a “small fault” caused by a heavy kerb strike.
Four-time Formula 1 world champion Vettel endured two difficult races at Silverstone, where he trailed team-mate Charles Leclerc quite substantially.
Leclerc finished third and fourth across the two British races, while Vettel was 10th and 12th.
Ferrari pledged to do everything it could to help Vettel find more pace after he said that multiple changes to the car over the two weekends achieved a better balance but failed to result in laptime gain.
Vettel had professed himself confused over the matter, saying he had “no answers” for his struggles.
After the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, when asked by The Race if Ferrari would consider a new chassis for Vettel, team boss Mattia Binotto said he was open to it if it was raised as a potential solution.
Ahead of this weekend’s Spanish GP the team has confirmed Vettel will get a new chassis. Ferrari said it had discovered an issue that likely only had a small impact on performance but stressed changing the chassis was the right call.
“There will be no particular updates on the SF1000,” said head of chassis engineering Simone Resta. “However, Sebastian will have a new chassis, because after the Silverstone post-race analysis, we spotted a small fault caused by a heavy impact over a kerb.
“It would not have had much of an effect on performance, but it was the logical decision to take.”
Vettel believed his Silverstone struggle was down to specific but undiagnosed circumstances rather than a continuation of a season-long struggle.
He is only 13th in the championship with 10 points to his name, while Leclerc is fourth on 45 points.
Vettel said that he had been happy with his performance in Austria and Hungary and the results looked worse than the reality, before two disappointing Silverstone qualifying performances left him on the back foot and struggling in traffic.
“We had an issue in the first race with a damage set on the brakes, causing the poor feeling in qualifying and race,” said Vettel when asked by The Race about his poor form. “Then the second Austria race was obviously was very short [Leclerc crashed into Vettel on the opening lap].
“In Hungary, I think it was an eventful race but a more normal race [Vettel finished sixth, his best result of the season] and then we came here [to Silverstone].
“It’s only been two weeks, but if you have back-to-back races it feels quite long if you’re not making proper progress.
“Generally I’m optimistic and I always get out of bed and try to the best that I can on the day and in that regard I didn’t have the best four, five or six days.
“But I’m looking forward to the next one, it’s coming in a week, and I’m sure once we are starting hopefully a bit further up I think we should have a clean race and be able to have a more normal race.”
