Ferrari have admitted they still need to figure out why they have lost pace compared to Red Bull as Max Verstappen continues to establish his dominance of this season.
While Mercedes were off the pace from the start, Ferrari and Red Bull seemed to be fairly evenly matched in the early weeks of the campaign. They began with a one-two finish in Bahrain and won two of the first three races while Verstappen suffered from early-season reliability niggles.
But Red Bull resolved those problems swiftly, and then it was the turn of the Italians to suffer setbacks. But Ferrari have failed to get to grips with engine reliability problems and disastrous strategy decisions, allowing their rivals to open an almost unassailable lead at the top of both championships.
And to make matters worse, since the summer break Red Bull seem to have taken a step clear of Ferrari. The sudden performance gap has the best and brightest at Maranello poring over the data to figure out how it can be bridged.
Upgrades are on the way including new wings, while they have also trialled an older floor design to see if their past additions to the F1-75 have hurt the car in terms of balance. But the big difference right now seems to be tyre life, with Red Bull managing to get more thanks to the balance of their cars.
Team principal Mattia Binotto has noticed the decline in performance since they raced in Budapest before the summer break, but admits his team is still unsure as to exactly why. "I think we do not only look back at the previous two [races] but the last three because I would include as well Hungary," he said.
"In the last races, I think that the performance of the Red Bull has been better than ours. Not in qualifying, because I see that in quali we have still got a good pace – so let me say the pure performance is still there. But then with the race pace, we are suffering tyre degradation.
"In that respect, I think the Red Bull is a better car, so they've been capable of developing that car for a better balance that we didn't. The reason? I think it is something that we are looking at, because we need to address it. If not for this season, certainly for the next one.
"Having an open balance, medium-high speed to low-speed corners, generated overheating into the tyres themselves, which somehow then brings to the degradation. So, we know that the car balance was not the right one. The reason of the poor car balance was due to aero developments that brought us there. It was a question mark for us."
