Laurent Mekies: “Behind almost everywhere”

La Team Ferrari achieved his best result of the season in Monaco with second place in Sebastian Vettel. But this podium does not manage to hide the always complicated situation in which the Maranello team finds itself, unable to rise to the level of the Mercedes W10.

The world champion team won the first six events of the season, and clearly seems a cut above in terms of performance. And this, despite the developments made by Ferrari on the engine level from the Spanish Grand Prix.

And not to mention that the star team should bring an engine upgrade for the next Grand Prix in Canada (June 7-9), as Lewis Hamilton spoke about it after the race in the Principality.

In the Ferrari clan, we recognize that there is still a lot of work to try to return to the level of the silver single-seaters. “We haven't progressed as much as we would have liked since the end of winter testing, admitted Laurent Mekies, sporting director of the Scuderia in Monaco.

We are behind almost everywhere in absolute performance. We need to improve on certain types of corners and on the way we use our aero with our mechanical grip and our tires.

The interaction between what the car does and what the tires do is one of the main keys to reading. They are different from last year and there is potential for development. We are still in an exploration phase.

We were not good in Australia, very good in Bahrain, average in China, rather good in Baku, in difficulty in Spain and here… We are at 6/0 but we could be at 4/2! We have a very strong team in front of us, and you have to be perfect everywhere to hope to beat them. »

Perhaps from the Canadian event, which could better suit the characteristics of the SF90. “The route is more inspired by Baku and Bahrain where we were better, but we have to remain careful because things are changing quickly as we have seen since the start of the season. » concludes Mekies

Discover the full report and analysis of the Monaco Grand Prix, as well as the complete interview with Laurent Mekies, carried out by our special correspondents in the Principality, in issue 2218 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version and on newsstands.