Charles Leclerc is hopeful he will be able to better influence the development of the 2020 car, having spent a full year with Scuderia Ferrari last season.
The Monégasque driver, who is heading into his third season in Formula 1, is keen to find a balance in how his car is set up.
Despite taking on board the advice of the outfit’s design team, Leclerc believes that the drivers themselves are better placed to understand and advise how to further develop the car.
Last year’s SF90 was set up so that the back end was not as stuck to the circuit compared to the SF71H, which seemed to offer a balanced preferred more by Leclerc than his team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
“On the direction of the car design it is more about the balance that you want,” said Leclerc, speaking at a fan Q&A at the Autosport International show.
“Different drivers have their preferences in balance, whether they want a more oversteering car or more understeering car, and now the team knows me a little bit better they know what I want from the car so they try to build the car around that so we can find that balance.
“Then we change the last details with the setup and the freedom that we have with the setup of the car. On the car design itself we don’t have much influence but mostly it is on the balance which depends on different drivers.
“In aerodynamics or balance coming through the corner, or you change the level of aerodynamics you have on the car, so high downforce or low downforce but this is more down to the engineers to change that. It is more down to the driver’s feeling with the balance of the car,” he said.
