{"id":23255,"date":"2024-08-24T05:35:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T09:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=23255"},"modified":"2024-08-24T05:42:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T09:42:39","slug":"ferrari-struggle-in-zandvoort-practice-as-concerns-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/24\/ferrari-struggle-in-zandvoort-practice-as-concerns-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferrari struggle in Zandvoort Practice as concerns grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few months, Ferrari has lost ground to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/23\/f1-news-mclaren-bring-the-most-upgrades-to-dutch-gp\/\" target=\"_self\">McLaren<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/22\/kimi-antonelli-on-verge-of-mercedes-announcement\/\" target=\"_self\">Mercedes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/24\/christian-horner-shuts-down-lawson-f1-guarantee\/\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull<\/a> in the development war. Free Practice in Zandvoort has confirmed their decline, with the SF-24 struggling for pace. Ferrari are the fourth-fastest team so far this weekend, with upgrades in the next few races necessary to rectify their situation.<\/p>\n<h2>Ferrari still playing catch-up<\/h2>\n<p>Heading into this weekend, there were reports that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/19\/ferrari-prepare-crucial-upgrades-for-dutch-gp\/\" target=\"_self\">Ferrari would bring updates to Zandvoort<\/a>. However, it is now understood the SF-24&#8217;s next updates are scheduled for Ferrari&#8217;s home race in Monza &#8211; next weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, the Italian outfit will focus on damage limitation. Leclerc was over seven tenths behind Russell in FP2, a relatively large deficit in a 70-second lap.<\/p>\n<p>The Monegasque was slower than Yuki Tsunoda, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/23\/alonso-confirms-involvement-in-bortoleto-f1-talks\/\" target=\"_self\">Fernando Alonso<\/a> and even Kevin Magnussen. Considering Ferrari were fighting for victories just three months ago, the first indications in Zandvoort are far from encouraging.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media on Friday evening, Leclerc was honest about the situation:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As expected, I would say. We don\u2019t quite have the pace of the guys in front, unfortunately.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I think it\u2019s better than what it looks like on the timesheet at the end of the day, but still not quite in the fight for the win, for sure.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;There\u2019s quite a bit of work to do still. That\u2019s what we are doing, but I hope it will pay off soon.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"eeOj_D_KRC1TBLj2H9VEZA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2167270321\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'eeOj_D_KRC1TBLj2H9VEZA',sig:'_z17DXqrVWiO3UJzXstYIXsEWgk7qPIWfDnzAzcunvY=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2167270321',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It was an even worse day for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/13\/why-next-season-could-be-a-write-off-for-carlos-sainz\/\" target=\"_self\">Carlos Sainz<\/a>, who barely completed any running with a gearbox issue. This leaves the Spaniard in a difficult position for qualifying and race day, especially since mixed conditions are anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse for Ferrari, McLaren have a significant upgrade package this weekend.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/07\/14\/wolff-mercedes-expect-rapid-upgrades-like-the-old-days\/\" target=\"_self\">Mercedes<\/a> are also using new components, returning to the new floor specification that was initially meant to debut in Spa.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the state of play is clear for Fred Vasseur and his personnel. They are close enough to deliver an upset, but more performance is required to win races once again.<\/p>\n<p>Unless their next updates can produce a clear step forward, the remainder of 2024 could become very frustrating for Ferrari.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few months, Ferrari has lost ground to McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull in the development war. Free Practice in Zandvoort has confirmed their decline, with the SF-24 struggling for pace. Ferrari are the fourth-fastest team so far this weekend, with upgrades in the next few races necessary to rectify their situation. Ferrari [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":23256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,1342,68,84,2250],"class_list":["post-23255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-dutch-gp","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-sf-24"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}