Charles Leclerc anticipates this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix to be the biggest challenge yet for Ferrari's recent fixes aimed at curbing its car's persistent bouncing problems.
The Scuderia’s big upgrade package introduced last month in Barcelona brought a new floor design that caused the return of the ground-effect porposing phenomenon in high-speed corners.
This hindered Ferrari's performance on faster tracks compared to Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes.
While they managed to mitigate the issue last weekend in Hungary thanks to changes to the SF-24’s floor but also to the venue’s more accommodating slower and twisty layout, Leclerc expects the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps circuit to be a real test of the effectiveness of the Scuderia’s fixes.
Ferrari has opted not to revert to the older Imola specifications used in Silverstone, which didn't suffer from bouncing but lags behind in development compared to their competitors.
This suggests the team is confident in its development direction despite the bouncing challenges.
"On a track like Spa, I think this is going to be a real test for us, because it's probably the track where I would expect our issues to be the most visible," Leclerc said.
"There we'll see if we have the confirmation that there's still a lot of work to do before we get our issues fixed, or whether the upgrades of this weekend helped us make a step forward for those tracks.
"On a high-speed track, I expect us to struggle a bit more."
Nevertheless, Leclerc believes that Ferrari now has a good understanding of its bouncing plight, which he admits is an “on or off” experience. Therefore, progress is in the works.
“The understanding is there, it’s going in the right direction for sure,” he said.
“The thing with the kind of issue we are facing is that it’s either on or off, and it’s very difficult to see the improvement.
“Maybe you have it for less time, and what I’m speaking of is mostly the bouncing, but it’s not like you improve the intensity of it, so whenever you have it, you have it.
“So we are doing steps in the right direction, whether it will be enough to not have it, I’m not sure yet, and I will expect that in Spa it can be an issue again.”
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