Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Paul Ricard, 2019

Ferrari: Reports of aero correlation problems are ‘not true, unfortunately’

2019 French Grand Prix

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Ferrari have denied reports claiming the team discovered an aerodynamic correlation problem which is behind their disappointing start to the 2019 season.

The team is seeking answers why its SF90 is not as competitive with rivals Mercedes as pre-season testing led them to believe. Recent reports claimed the team discovered readings from its wind tunnel did not correlate with real-world performance. However team principal Mattia Binotto denied the claims when asked about them at Paul Ricard yesterday.

“I heard or at least I read that point,” said Binotto. “It’s not true at all. We do not have correlation issues.

“I would say even unfortunately because if that would have been the case maybe we would have solved part of the performance. But it’s not a correlation issue.”

Ferrari ran several new parts on its car in practice at Paul Ricard yesterday, but has since removed some of the upgrades from its car as these were test items for future development.

“We are keeping [the] modified brake ducts on the front, rear wing and the front wing,” Binotto explained.

“We brought here some parts which were important for us to test to understand the direction of development. We tested a few parts, some of them will be kept on the car for the rest of the weekend.

“So it’s not an entire package that has been cancelled or not, let me say, considered positive. A few parts will be kept because they’re considered positive, the ones which have been removed simply because they are part of our test plan but not intended to be raced for the weekend.”

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4 comments on “Ferrari: Reports of aero correlation problems are ‘not true, unfortunately’”

  1. Still remember when Limping donkeys had “wind tunnel” problems. Its always something else not their engineers, drivers, strategists and approach to season.

  2. Aww, well, I hope this is just denying it because it’s true, because that was a good story, with hope for a good recovery.

  3. It’d suck to be the TP who has to say “Rumours of our impending success have been greatly exaggerated”. I can totally sympathize with Binotto’s “I wish” sentiment, because from the other – and now incorrect – report, it was a significant difference of three-tenths per lap!

    1. Yep, indeed – still some hope that the fact they spent the whole Friday back-to-back evaluating old and new development and also that when asked why here, when it’s not a great track for it the answer was ‘important for us to do it on the same day, same track’; as I think both of those do point to correlation errors – maybe though they are just avoiding saying ‘we messed up in this way’.

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