While Ferrari had their fair share of issues during the race, Leclerc noted a drop-off in pace during the Grand Prix, calling on Ferrari to investigate tyre degradation he suffered at the Hard Rock Stadium. Coming into the weekend, expectations were high for the Scuderia, who brought 11 upgrades to Miami, more than anyone else on the grid after a five-week break.
Most well-known for being Felipe Massa’s race engineer at Ferrari, Rob Smedley reflected on the Italian team’s Miami GP, arguing his former side would have experienced a “soul destroying” weekend after bringing that many upgrades to the Sunshine State.
Speaking on the High Performance Racing Podcast, Smedley, who worked at Ferrari from 2004 to 2013, said: “It’s slightly soul destroying because what that is, it starts, from a technical point of view, it starts essentially like this negative loop that you’ve then got to know what did you bring? What’s working? What’s not working?”
The 52-year-old continued, warning the Scuderia that they could face a “reverse-engineering process” that just goes “round and round” if something has indeed gone awry in the SF-26’s development over April.
“If it’s not correlating, as in the wind tunnel or your simulation tools are not matching what’s on track. You’ve then got to go through this whole reverse-engineering process, where you go back to the tunnel, and that holds up all the development in the tunnel that you should be doing. It just goes round and round.”
“And tunnel time is spent, tunnel and simulation time, which is limited through the aerodynamic testing regulations, the ATR. You’re only allowed so much. It’s a mix of wind tunnel time and CFD time, and if you have to spend that on working out why your car isn’t correlating on track rather than developing the car to be faster, in technical terms, you’re f***ed.”
Leclerc raises Ferrari concerns after Miami GP performance loss
Photo: Race Pictures
After the Miami GP, Leclerc lamented his drop of pace as his 57-lap race unravelled, calling on Ferrari to look into tyre degradation he experienced. Speaking to media, including GPblog, Leclerc said: “On the medium [tyre] we weren’t strong. We were degrading a massive amount.
“On the hard, it wasn’t great at the beginning, then it picked up, and then it was a little bit better, but it was never at the level of yesterday [the Sprint].
“We need to look at it. We’ve lost a lot of performance compared to yesterday, and I would like to understand exactly what happened there.”