Ferrari Frustration Ahead Of Two Races At Home

Charles Leclerc (Twitter @charles_leclerc)

JAKARTA - Ferrari has been disappointing at the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit since Friday's training session. At their peak, they were only able to finish in P13 and Q14, the same positions when they started. Even though the race at home is only two weeks away

The Prancing Horse Team will certainly have to overcome the frustrating problems at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday before heading to the two races in Monza and Mugello, Italy.

Charles Leclerc kicked off the race early on on soft tires, moving up four spots on the first lap to the top 10.

But after a slow pitstop tragedy, the crew was too late to prepare tires at the first pitstop until the Monaco rider had to stop for 10.4 seconds, and at the second pistrop the crew had to raise pneumatic pressure which caused him to retreat to P14 behind his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel.

"It's very frustrating," said Leclerc as quoted by Antara, Monday.

"It has been a very difficult weekend for us and this race has not been easier. We had problems at the number of pitstops I played, which cost me a lot of time and position.

"Then I tried to catch up again but it was very difficult to overtake, even with DRS, so we have to clean up, because like this is very difficult.

Vettel was also overwhelmed with taming the SF1000 car this time after being overtaken twice by Kimi Raikkonen using the Alfa Romeo car powered by a Ferrari engine before finally finishing one position behind the Finnish racer.

Fun 1st lap, not fun after that. Next stop: Monza 🇮🇹❤️ pic.twitter.com/qcescdMO9i

- Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) August 30, 2020

"Spa is certainly one of the tracks that are sensitive to power and we had a hard time this year when it comes to power," said Vettel.

The four-time world champions are hoping for Ferrari to clean up towards their home race at Monza next week and to celebrate Ferrari's 1000 grand prix at Mugello a week later.

This year's Ferrari car package that is not fast enough on the straight track will be the main problem they face at Monza, a circuit which is known to be very fast.

# Charles16 pitted again for medium tires. 18 laps to go. He's back into action in P17. # BelgianGP🇧🇪 pic.twitter.com/pvs8ewjgnl

- Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) August 30, 2020

"We have two important races for the team in the following two weeks, but we have to be realistic too ... The package is what it is, we are not as strong as we want, so we have to remain optimistic and look at the good things, even if there are not many at the moment.

"We have to make sure if we stay calm and don't get disappointed, because frustration usually doesn't take you anywhere," said Vettel, who spent his final year at Ferrari.

38/44 laps into # BelgianGP🇧🇪 # Seb5 P13 and # Charles16 P15. pic.twitter.com/YgDsiqN8Ef

- Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) August 30, 2020