Ferrari is seeking to understand whether its aerodynamic development has created the tyre management problems that have hurt its Formula 1 form.
Runaway championship leaders Red Bull and Max Verstappen have now won four races in a row with Ferrari not seriously challenging for victory in the last three.
Charles Leclerc led in Hungary before fading, although this was complicated by Ferrari’s tyre choice in the race, then in Belgium and the Netherlands Ferrari was simply outperformed by Red Bull and even slipped behind Mercedes in terms of race pace.
One of Ferrari’s theories for this dip in form is that its upgrades have negatively impacted car balance in a way that is exaggerating the thermal degradation of the tyres.
It ran an older specification of floor in Friday practice at Monza on Carlos Sainz’s car as a means of testing this.
“If we look back at the last races where tyre degradation has not been the best, we have certainly issues with the car balance,” said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto.
“And having an open balance in medium-high-speed to low-speed corners generates overheating in the tyres themselves, which leads to the degradation.
“We know the car balance was not right. Was it due to aero developments that brought us there? It was a question mark for us.
“It’s the reason why we did the test yesterday even though Monza is not the best circuit to do the test.
“We did it to collect data to analyse once back at the factory and try to have a good explanation for what happened, which we do not have as a complete and final answer.
“We’re still in a path of analysing, understanding and hopefully addressing it for the future.”
Ferrari has scored just podiums in the last four races, with Leclerc third in last weekend’s Dutch GP and Carlos Sainz third in Belgium.
Both times, though, Ferrari could have been beaten to the podium by a Mercedes.
This is despite Sainz scoring pole position at Spa, after a grid penalty for Verstappen, and Leclerc narrowly missing out on pole at Zandvoort.
Binotto admitted it is “not our best moment in terms of form” and Ferrari has been forced to confront its recent weakness in race trim.
But he is optimistic the team’s home race in Italy this weekend will be better, as “understood the most of the issues of Spa and we have addressed them, and yesterday has confirmed that our car in Monza will be certainly better than the one we’ve seen in Spa”.
Leclerc also has a great chance to start from pole with Sainz, both Red Bulls, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton all taking grid penalties at Monza.
“We have certainly analysed the data from the last three races, tried to address, tried to improve,” said Binotto.
“And if I look at yesterday, certainly the feeling with the car has been a lot better compared to the previous ones and the car balance seems to work a bit more.
“So overall, we’ve got a good feeling.
“Charles has got a great opportunity tomorrow in the race because he has hopefully not got any penalties.
“Here in Monza it’s not always obvious to overtake so I think for him it’s a great opportunity.”
Keyword: Ferrari wonders if car development has sparked tyre problems