Charles Leclerc is the only non-Red Bull driver to have taken pole this season so far, with the Monaco topping both Friday and Saturday’s sprint shootout in Azerbaijan.
He was just 0.292s behind pole in the Bahrain opener before retiring with a power unit failure, then 0.155s behind in qualifying in Saudi Arabia before being given a grid penalty.
But Ferrari has only one podium finish in Baku this season, thanks to Leclerc, and its top-ranked driver is an average of 30.85 seconds behind the winner over the first five rounds.
Ferrari driver coach Jock Clear said the gap could be explained by defending constructors’ champion Red Bull opening the door wide in qualifying as a trade-off to maximize race pace.
Asked to explain comparing Ferraris falling over a longer period of time, Clear said: “We have a pretty good idea of what the problem is. It’s quantifying it.
“So, in some ways we’re saying, ‘OK, we’re comparing what happened in qualifying to what happened in the race’. We can see some differences.
“Maybe what we don’t quite agree on is how those differences came about. That’s the process we’re going through at the moment, (it’s) is determining what we can do, or what we can shift in terms of our focus, maybe to get the pace of the game going.” Get back on track.”
Clear believes Ferrari may have to emulate Red Bull and sacrifice some lap performance in order to improve race day performances.
He continued: “Do we have to take a hit in qualifying? It’s always a tough pill to swallow because the races are usually played in qualifying.
“So, we can’t take our eyes off qualifying. But for sure, we need to be fully aware of how to get the pace of the race.
“We have to take our hats off to Red Bull and say they’re doing something very, very smart. That car is very, very good at race pace.
“We may also conclude that in doing so they may have given up some qualifying pace.
“That’s why we can compete with them, because they are not the best in qualifying.”
Asked where Red Bull had left Ferrari behind, Clear said: “They’re very, very quick on the straights, especially when DRS is on.
“Again, we’ve got to look at that and see what we can do to get rid of that drag because that’s free lap time.
“The drivers can go from (one turn to the other) as fast as they can without having to use a lot of tricks. That’s obviously an area where they’re very fast.”