Ferrari: No point in chasing high-downforce gains

Just a fortnight on from some encouraging signs at the Japanese Grand Prix, Ferrari was unable to match the pace of Mercedes and Red Bull in Austin – with its misery further compounded by a pit stop blunder that forced Kimi Raikkonen out of the race.

Red Bull has now extended its lead over Ferrari in the constructors’ championship to 53 points with three races remaining, as the Italian team acknowledges it will take some good fortune for it to overhaul its Milton Keynes-based opposition.

Team principal Maurizio Arrivabene says the performance of the team at the United States Grand Prix was not really a big surprise, because its car suffers at high-downforce venues.

“This track, that is a high-downforce track, is not comparable to Suzuka,” he said, when asked to explain the form shift since Japan.

“In Suzuka we made some steps, and we were happy about this. But the characteristic of the track there is completely different to here, which is a high-downforce track.

“Our pace [in the race] was not that bad, compared to Friday and Saturday. But unfortunately we were not able to get the podium.”

When asked as to why Austin had been a problem, Arrivabene said: “I mean, I don’t want to repeat all season where we have a problem.

“It is clear now that the circuits that are not preferable for us are the ones with the high downforce. That’s the point.

“If you start to focus your attention on solving that problem this year, you’re losing time on next year’s development. So this is the reason we were concentrated on high-performance circuits like Suzuka, because in that case you take parts to Suzuka and they can work and they can give you data for next year’s car.”

Trapped rubber

Arrivabene also explained that Sebastian Vettel’s late pitstop a few laps from home was more about clearing rubber stuck to the rear wing than for tyre reasons.

It also helped give the pit crew confidence it could complete a stop without trouble, following the cross-threaded nut that caused Raikkonen’s issue.

“It was just a piece of rubber that was on the rear wing, and the rear wing was stalling,” he said. “That was the problem.

“So, at a certain point he called us and said it’s not that easy, and looking at the gap in between Sebastian and the other guys, we said 'okay, come in and we’ll clean the rear wing'. It was also good to have another pitstop to give back certainty to the team.”