Ferrari deny ‘copying anyone’ with their revised Spanish GP sidepods

Ferrari weren’t “copying” rivals with their new revised sidepods, rather they just looked “at what they did”, says Jock Clear.

After six races in which they secured just one podium and were repeatedly trounced by Red Bull, Ferrari opted to put new sidepods on the SF-23 at the Spanish Grand Prix in the hope that would unlock more pace from the car.

Billed as anything and everything from the Alpine look to the Aston Martin to the Red Bull, the revised sidepods are in keeping with the downwash concept first brought to the track by the Milton Keynes squad last season.

Winning last year’s championship double and on their way to this year’s titles with seven wins from seven races, it’s Red Bull’s philosophy that is beginning to sweep across the grid with Mercedes having also updated their W14 with downwash sidepods.

However Clear, driver coach for Charles Leclerc, says Ferrari’s design is not a copy.

“When people launch their car, they’re all convinced about it. So, nobody says: ‘we put these sidepods on, but we weren’t convinced about them’,” he said of Ferrari’s decision to change paths.

“We are all convinced about what we had. But then we all have to learn from what other people are doing and also what we’re doing.

“We’re not copying anyone, per se. We’re looking at what they did, we’re going back to our tunnel, and trying to find out if that works. It’s appeared on the car now because it works.

“Ultimately, we only follow the science and the great thing about aerodynamics, and a great thing about this sport and the reason we do it, in my case for 30 years, is because every day is different, every year is different, every car is different.

“We’re still learning. There are a million ways to solve the problems and you’re never going to cover all of them.”

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Having taken more than a year to draw inspiration from the race-winning car’s design, Clear says that’s because Ferrari wanted to avoid a knee jerk reaction.

Last season Ferrari started well, winning two of the first three races, but then lost the plot while Red Bull refined their RB18 and became the ones to beat.

They won 17 of the season’s 22 races with Ferrari taking just four wins while this year Red Bull are seven from seven with Ferrari struggling to even reach the podium.

“As soon as you see what someone else is doing well, and you get that in your tunnel, you’re disciplined enough not to have a knee jerk and just chuck it on your car, because it won’t work,” Clear said.

“You have to give yourself a couple of months to get it sorted and to get it to work with your car. And then you say: actually, I can see where they’re coming from there.’

“What you see is the result of that, and it’s going to lead to a further development down that avenue. We’ve sort of started to investigate a new avenue to go down.

“It’s one of those organic developments, isn’t it/ I’m sure we looked at that from day one of the first test, where you look at the different cars and you look at everybody’s solution, and you start to think: ‘okay, maybe there are other ways they could have solved this.’

“As soon as the Red Bull’s dominance became clear, obviously you have to look very, very closely at what they’re doing.

“So, in a normal process, I would say that you’re probably looking at two months ago where you had to choose this avenue to go down.”