The 0.4mm difference that may be costing Ferrari

A minimal change to the Pirelli tyres for 2019 has proved to be a major tech headache for Formula 1 teams. But some have adapted better than others, which may explain just why Ferrari's pre-season pace has disappeared

Published May 30, 2019, 1:24 PM

Sebastian Vettel may have been half-joking when he made a plea for help in finding a phone number for the "grip guy" after the Monaco Grand Prix, but it is clear that his Ferrari team thinks its problems in 2019 are mostly tyre related.

Ferrari has dug deep into what has gone wrong over the early stages of the current campaign, and its conclusions are that it has not gone the wrong way with its car concept or that it has a fundamentally bad design. Instead, Ferrari's biggest headache is that it cannot switch on its tyres as well as others.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.