Bottas to test new Ferrari clutch in France: 'Working on it for a while'

Ferrari has designed a new clutch to improve race starts. Alfa Romeo will use the new Ferrari clutch at the French Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz has not yet commented on the use of the clutch.

Alfa Romeo complained about vibrations in the first clutch, which sometimes caused the start to be worse. However, it is also known that this problem has affected Ferrari itself. In general, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz often have slightly worse starts than Red Bull Racing and Mercedes.

Leclerc has already taken several pole positions this season, but at the start the Monegasque has been overtaken by Max Verstappen on several occasions. In response, the Italians have developed a new clutch. According to The Race it is not yet clear whether all three Ferrari teams, including Haas, will use the new part.

Bottas reveals that he will be using the new clutch. "We will try it out in the practice for the first time but it is something that Ferrari has been working on for quite some time." Carlos Sainz did not want to say anything about using the new clutch, but acknowledges the problem. It is likely that Ferrari first want to see if the clutch works at Alfa Romeo.

"We’ve identified an issue on our car this year that is not allowing us to perform the starts that we were doing last year", Sainz tells Motorsport.com. The Spaniard indicates that Ferrari is keeping the problem private. It's not that the Ferrari falls back at every start, but there is room for improvement.