Ferrari car upgrade ’not a failure’ - Binotto

Ferrari did not get off to a good start at Paul Ricard.

First, the stewards rejected the push for a review of Sebastian Vettel’s controversial Canada GP penalty. And then questions were raised about the new car upgrade.

A lot is riding on the upgrade, with Vettel declaring that Ferrari realistically has only two more races in 2019 to catch up with Mercedes.

Team boss Mattia Binotto isn’t sure if he agrees.

"It’s difficult to say whether the tenth race is a turning point," he said.

"I think we understand our car better and we have some ideas, and for the several races coming up, we are preparing new parts that will improve our situation."

However, there is a setback in France, with Vettel revealing that "not all the new parts we have here performed exactly as expected".

Indeed, the new floor was removed from the car after practice.

Binotto said: "We are going to use the new front wing, rear wing and brake ducts. They brought what we expected.

"Some parts are not staying on the car but not because they are a failure, but because we believe we need more time to understand them."

Not just that, the Paul Ricard layout is not good for the Ferrari, particularly the third sector that Binotto says is like Barcelona.

Binotto denied that the real problem relates to a news story about a correlation issue between the wind tunnel, CFD and the actual track.

"I read that too, but it is completely untrue," he insisted. "I would even say unfortunately, because then we could have solved it