Nico Rosberg sends warning to Ferrari with rival team ‘straight-lining development curve’

Nico Rosberg has warned Ferrari they cannot afford another misstep with their upgrades, especially not at a time when McLaren are “straight-lining the development curve”.

Winning the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari seemingly cemented their position as Red Bull’s nearest challenger with the Scuderia less than a race win away from taking the lead in the Constructors’ Championship.

Ferrari are ‘three, four or five-tenths’ off the pace

But a major misstep as they updated the SF-24 at the Spanish Grand Prix, where they brought new parts to the car having accelerated the development plans, had the opposite reaction with Carlos Sainz saying they lost “two to three months” worth of development time.

The biggest issue was the new floor, while worth more downforce, introduced bouncing in the high-speed corners.

Ferrari had to roll back on the new parts before playing a game of mix-and-match as they tried to understand exactly what part, or even parts, were responsible.

It’s cost them in the Constructors’ Championship where they have slipped to third, where they are 21 points behind McLaren with the Woking team’s scoring rate, as well as that of fourth-placed Mercedes, far outweighing Ferrari’s.

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“It’s not good,” Rosberg told Sky F1. “It’s got away from them a little bit because the upgrades introduced bouncing in high-speed corners, which is not the thing you want to have.

“They didn’t really understand why so they had to do a step back to understand, to then hopefully make progress again for the future.

“You cannot allow yourself to do that when someone like McLaren is just straight-lining the development curve at an amazing pace.

“And so that’s why now they find themselves where they are today, three, four or five-tenths behind. Let’s see if they can get closer.”

Martin Brundle reckons Ferrari needed F1’s summer break reset as they have dropped off the “ultimate pace” of the leading four teams.

“I understand they’ve got a bit of a hybrid floor on that car now,” said the former F1 driver turned pundit.

“The upgrade didn’t work that they put on after Spain and around Imola. They found bits that did and bits that didn’t work.

“It seems to me Ferrari are a little bit at see at the moment, it’s almost like that needs to reset. It’s not serious as what’s going on at Aston Martin, but there’s no doubt about it, Ferrari have dropped away from the ultimate pace.”

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