Charles Leclerc believes the return of the “bouncing” phenomenon is impacting Ferrari’s progress after a topsy-turvy 2024 F1 season so far.
The Monegasque driver ended a near two-year win duck as he claimed victory at his home race in Monaco in May and, at that stage, was Max Verstappen’s closest challenger for the world championship.
However, Leclerc and Ferrari encountered problems in the races thereafter, failing to win any of the subsequent six races and the Monegasque driver claiming just one podium.
Since that win in Monaco, the Scuderia have encountered the bouncing issue which impacted a number of teams in the first year of this ground-effect generation of F1 cars in 2022 – and Leclerc says the impact on the car’s performance cannot be underplayed.
“From Spain [in June] onwards, I think this was more the turning point where we brought something on the car, which the numbers as I’ve always said, were there,” Leclerc told Autosport.
“However, it induced quite a lot of bouncing that we’ve been struggling with. And on my side specifically, I went very aggressive in the last four races with set-up, especially trying to find solutions for that.
“I’ve always been [aiming] to go for the last hundredths and I think this is the approach that pays off whenever things are as they should be. Whenever you have a car, that is bouncing, for example, you cannot go too close to the limit because the car is doing more unpredictable things, and you’ve got to keep more margin.
“Which is something that I know I’m a bit… yes, it’s not my approach, and so always, I’m going to pay a little bit more of the price whenever these things happen.
Charles Leclerc is third in the F1 world championship with 10 races left (Getty Images)
“However, I don’t think that this was the main issue in the last few races. It was more about putting the car in very extreme places in order to get something out of it and to understand. That was the main reason for the lack of performance in the last few races.
“I will put that mostly on bouncing. The bouncing is what created the inconsistencies that we have seen in the last few races, and made us struggle a bit more than before that.”
Leclerc is now third in the championship, behind Verstappen and Lando Norris, and trails the leading Red Bull driver by 100 points with 10 races remaining.
F1 returns with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on 23-25 August.
