03 September 2023 , 11:48
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Ferrari would have been "silly" not to bring a bespoke Formula 1 car to its home race at Monza, says Charles Leclerc's performance engineer Jock Clear.
The Scuderia has not had the performance it has wanted for most of the season so far. But it has shown great pace over the Italian Grand Prix weekend, with Carlos Sainz going quickest in two of the three practice sessions before beating Max Verstappen to pole in qualifying.
The Spaniard was helped by the fact his SF-23 has been given an update specifically for this race. In the F1 budget cap era, teams have generally been reluctant about doing this as it drains funds that could be used elsewhere.
But, given the demand in Italy for Ferrari to perform at Monza, the team clearly felt it was a move worth making on this occasion. Clear said, though, that it is not the only reason why the Scuderia has chosen this particular weekend to bring a specifically-designed car.
"Obviously, there's a cost cap and everybody has to decide what they want to spend their money on," he told reporters. "Nowadays, it's a unique race, the only place where we would run absolutely low downforce.
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"But given that, early in the season, we recognised that the lower-downforce was suiting us better, it would have been silly of us, not just from the sentimental point of view, not just that the crowd is full of red, but it's clearly a circuit that's going to benefit us.
"We knew that a few months ago. So doing a bespoke package here was the right thing to do from a performance point of view. And of course it comes with a Ferrari being on pole in Monza and that's [gives] all of us motivation: the crowd, the Tifosi, the drivers. There's nothing better."
The explanation comes after Lewis Hamilton made a point of talking about how quick the Ferraris were in qualifying. The Brit could only go eighth fastest in his Mercedes while Sainz and Leclerc were both in the top three with Verstappen, and said it was "not easy" to accept that he was also slower than a Williams and a McLaren.
In a separate interview, he then said: "This is [Ferrari's] home race, they have new engines and suddenly they are the fastest car on the grid. That's what it is but, hey, I like to see them up there."