Revealed: The three remaining circuits Ferrari will target for SF-24 breakthrough moment

Although minimising their losses with the bouncing SF-24 will be the target in Zandvoort, Fred Vasseur is convinced Ferrari have three “good” chances after that on tracks that will suit the car.

Red Bull’s nearest challenger in the opening rounds of the season, Ferrari’s form took a hit when the upgrade introduced in Spain created issues with bouncing in the high-speed corners.

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Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

That, coupled with big improvements from McLaren and Mercedes, set Ferrari back and even cost the Scuderia second place in the Constructors’ Championship where they sit 21 points behind McLaren.

Ferrari has secured just two podiums since Spain, both P3 results, which is in sharp contrast to McLaren and Mercedes who are both on five-race and longer top-three streaks.

Vasseur concedes that while the next race on the calendar, the Dutch Grand Prix, could be a case of damage limitation, they should be in for a good run after that in Italy, Azerbaijan and Singapore.

“We have a good sequence of tracks for us with Monza, Baku, Singapore… I think these are good tracks for the characteristics of the car,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com.

“I think that the most important is to score points and it was the target coming to Spa, to not lose points on McLaren and Red Bull, and we did it.

“It will be the same target in Zandvoort because I’m convinced that the next three or four races after will be much better for us.”

The team boss is taking heart from Mercedes’ gains over the Belgian Grand Prix that saw them finish Friday’s practice almost a second down before taking the win on the Sunday.

“I think Spa is a very good example for everybody,” he continued, “because Mercedes was really struggling on Friday, fixing the issues… When we say struggling, it’s not that they are going at the back of the pack, but [lacking] two-tenths.

“As soon as you fix something or do a small step, you can recover from P7, P8 to P1, P2. We are pushing on the fact that we have to pay attention to every single detail.”

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That attention to detail saw Ferrari roll back on their Spanish Grand Prix upgrades before bringing a modified version of that floor to Hungary, which tempered some of the bouncing.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were fourth and sixth in Budapest before the Monegasque driver put his SF-24 on the podium in Spa where Sainz was sixth.

Vasseur has talked up the team’s gains.

“It’s not like two years ago, when if you were finishing P4 or P7, you were finishing 60 seconds behind Max Verstappen,” he said.

“In Budapest we finished in the same position as one year ago, but we are not at 65 seconds anymore, we are at 20. Now we need to keep everything under control, to not overreact, to pay attention to details. I’m quite positive.”

Ferrari, though, still need to eradicate the bouncing with the SF-24.

“To fix the bouncing is a step in performance,” he explained. “For sure, we are pushing like hell to bring something and we will do it as soon as possible.”

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