Arguably the biggest rule change in F1 history will come to the sport in 2022 – and Charles Leclerc confirmed that an early version of Ferrari’s next season challenger felt “very different” than he tried it in the team’s Maranello simulator .
Perhaps the biggest changes to the regulations in 2022 are the focus on using the ground effect to generate downforce and the switch to 18-inch tires. And in the run-up to the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc revealed his first impressions of the new car in the simulator.
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“Yes we did,” Leclerc said when asked if Ferrari’s drivers had tried a simulated version of the 2022 car. “But it’s still very, very early …
“It feels very different,” he added. “Then I think it’s a question mark for everyone whether we’re doing well or not. As I said, it’s such a different project, it’s still very, very early on, so nobody knows where we are compared to the others. But we are working on it.
A rendering of the 2022 car released in 2019
When asked specifically how he and Sainz helped with the 2022 project, Leclerc replied: “It’s difficult because at the moment it’s just numbers and predictions, but we can definitely give our feedback, especially in the simulator. [We’re lucky] to have a very good simulator in Ferrari and we can try different things in this simulator and there the input from the driver is very, very important.
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“Then on to other things for the moment, it is still very early that we will actually say something. The only thing we can do is to work with Carlos as best we can to try to explain the weaknesses of this year’s car, understand why we have those weaknesses, and try not to reproduce these mistakes for next year’s car – Even if the project is completely different.
“So I would say we have a lot of input on the simulator – and we can help a lot and with this year’s feedback we try to help the team to work in the right direction and to know exactly what” they have to go fast. “
Leclerc said Ferrari still needs to understand its current car’s tire issues
Leclerc and Sainz currently have other fish to fry, with the SF21 showing poor racing pace at the French Grand Prix two weekends ago – and almost top of the class at the Styrian Grand Prix a weekend ago when Sainz and Leclerc finished P6 and P7 after after the first round he had occupied places 11 and 18.
And Leclerc said his and Ferrari are now focused on figuring out exactly why their performance has improved so dramatically.
READ MORE: Sainz says that the Ferrari pace is comparable to Red Bull while fighting his way from P12 to P6 at the Styrian GP
“There has been a lot of work between Paul Ricard and Austria,” said Leclerc. “Of course I don’t think we expected such a step, but it is also a result of the team’s work. But we shouldn’t get carried away either. As big as the surprise was, in a bad way in Paul Ricard, it was a very, very good surprise that Sunday too. But we have to understand exactly how we came to this result on Sunday.
“We have some things that we think helped this performance last Sunday, but we don’t get the full picture of why we did it on Sunday.”
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