Vasseur: Quite impossible to simulate the bouncing

Ferrari's recent upgrade package introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix caused theSF-24 to bounce, as the team introduced a revised floor at the Hungarian Grand Prix to try and solve the issue.

Speaking to the media - including GrandPrix247 - after the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, Vasseur was asked if the current Formula 1 regulations have exposed a weakness in the teams' simulation tools as they all seemed to struggle with controlling the bouncing phenomenon.

Vasseur explained: "The issue is that when bouncing is not under control and I think it's quite impossible to simulate the bouncing because you can see that from session to session when the wind changes direction or whatever, that the bouncing can appear or disappear, that it's really marginal.

"We are all really on the edge of this," he went on. "You can't simulate this in the wind tunnel. We have some metrics to imagine if we'll be in a better shape or not, but at the end of the day we are also pushed by the tough performance that we could gain with a bit more downforce sometimes. And it's a good exercise to improve all our tools, because we had to imagine how to simulate this kind of non-stable situation.

"I think we made huge step forward but everybody made a huge step forward on this. The issue is that we are developing much closer to the limit, and at the end of the day that we are always playing with this bouncing to stay close. And if you overshoot, you have to do a step back, and we are really on the limit," he maintained.

Ferrari had to remove their package to get rid of the bouncing, something Mercedes did at Spa-Francorchamps, as they struggled early on in the weekend, but went on to win the race.

With this fact pointed out to him, Vasseur said: "We are convinced and it's obvious that for one tenth or one tenth and a half you change completely the vision of the weekend, it means that we are all pushing to bring parts, and you know that the correlation between the what we are doing at the factory and the track for the bouncing is not an easy one.

"It was not easy for Mercedes, it was not easy for us, it was not easy for other teams from the beginning of the season. And we are also on the edge of the development. I think that we have the same regulation by four years and it is more difficult to chase the last tenths of seconds.

"Bouncing is key," he insisted, "because it's not just a matter of performance, but it's mainly a matter of confidence of the drivers.

"It means that if you gain one tenth due to downforce then you are losing three tenths by the confidence of the drivers or the consistency of the drivers - at the end of the day the P&L is negative," the Frenchman concluded.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz crossed the finish line at the Belgian GP fourth and seventh respectively. That became third and sixth after George Russell was disqualified for an underweight car.