The tweaks came close to helping Charles Leclerc to the grand prix pole position, but he missed out on beating Max Verstappen by 0.048s.
Even having a sniff of the top spot was a sure sign of the progress that Ferrari has made since both updating its sidepods at the Spanish Grand Prix and unlocking some critical answers about how best the SF-23 should be set up.
Indeed, it seems that insight Ferrari got from both the Spanish GP and the post-race Pirelli test has helped the squad make a breakthrough in knowing what direction it needs to take with its car development.
Ferrari engineer Jock Clear, whose official job title is driver coach to Charles Leclerc, has singled out the Barcelona week as a eureka moment for the team.
“I think the key there is that Barcelona is an exceptionally good track for identifying what your car is doing,” said Clear. “You cannot hide from a bad car in Barcelona, and similarly, when you've got a good car, you're going to be strong in Barcelona.
“The Barcelona test was a Pirelli test, and more laps around there are always valuable. But actually, the Barcelona weekend, when you have got that relative performance, was probably the key as we had a lot of data there from a track that is absolutely, solidly understood.
“I think that was the weekend where we identified, 'okay, this is what's happening to the car', and we can rely on that being our weakness.
“I think from then on, both in the developments, although obviously they were already in the pipeline, but also in the way we set the car up, I think we've made progress.”
The progress has manifested itself in some greater race consistency in both Canada and Austria, with the latest updates aimed at helping make the car more benign. There is still a performance deficit to Red Bull, but the first steps in closing appear to have been made.
Source: Autosport