Vasseur expects further gains from Ferrari upgrade in Hungary

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says a suspension upgrade introduced in Belgium can provide another step forward in performance if it is optimized further at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Ferrari ran a new rear suspension for the Sprint weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, despite the limited practice time before Sprint qualifying on the Friday afternoon. Following a podium for Charles Leclerc and a recovery from a pit lane start to seventh for Lewis Hamilton, Vasseur says bringing the new parts to Belgium puts the team in a better position for the Hungaroring this weekend.

“I think that we have to fine-tune the situation,” Vasseur said. “It's never easy to introduce something on a Sprint weekend, but we didn't want to postpone to Budapest.

“It's true that with the format of the weekend, the fact that as you don't do a long stint on Friday – or doing a long stint of four laps – it’s not easy to have references and so on. But at the end, I think it was the right call because it's also the best preparation for us. We will try to put everything together a bit earlier in the weekend be a bit more performant next week.”

Vasseur says such a major mechanical upgrade is rarely one that provides an instant improvement, unlike some aerodynamic additions that can add load without affecting the car’s handling characteristics.

“For sure you have some upgrades during the season where it's paying off from lap 1, and some others that you have to fine-tune and to understand exactly the behavior, to understand the correlation with the brakes, ride height and so on," he said. "We are still in this process.

"If I have to choose, for sure I would have preferred to have Spa as a normal weekend and to do a kind of slow introduction and to do it step by step, but I'm not choosing the calendar and I think in the end it was the best choice to do it and also the best preparation for Budapest.”