Although Ferrari enjoyed its most competitive weekend of the year so far in Italy a fortnight ago, the performance also served to highlight some core deficits in the performance of the SF-23.
In particular, testing it conducted at Monza, confirming the outcome of experiments it did in the previous race at Zandvoort, helped deliver more answers about why Ferrari loses out when more downforce is added to the car.
Leclerc thinks that the understanding Ferrari took away from Monza was important as it continues to focus on a major change of car design for next season.
“We learned plenty during Monza, especially about our weaknesses,” he said in Singapore. “And it confirmed that we were stronger on low downforce tracks, which obviously for here means it's going to be a bit more of a difficult weekend for us.
“After Monza we understood more things which are good for this year, even though it will be a small step in the right direction, but mostly it’s for designing next year's car which is positive.”
Ferrari is set to make some extensive changes for its 2024 challenger, with Leclerc saying that such a different direction is now well justified knowing what happened at Monza.
“The 2024 project is very different to the car we have this year,” he explained. “With everything we've learned also, it reaffirms that it's a good choice that we've done for next year.
Source: Autosport