Ferrari is making the paddock debate with the SF-23: the engineers of the cavallino did not hide the solutions they decided to introduce on the new red car already at the first lap on the track held at Fiorano during the presentation that took place on the home track, in a scenario that allowed to taste a genuine, authentic air.
On display was not a livery, not a rendering perhaps camouflaged in Photoshop to hide those details you don't want to show until collective testing in Bahrain next week, but there was the whole car. Real, very real in all its beauty.
To fans of the Cavallino, the curvy, eye-catching forms may become seductive, but fans expect a competitive Ferrari that can challenge Max Verstappen's Red Bull and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. After all, the team principal, Fred Vasseur, has been clear from the first statements: "The Scuderia will aim for two world titles, because Maranello lacks nothing to be a winner."
And, then, it was the technical aspect that took over: the Ferrari did not hide, but decided to take to the track without the mask. The front wing, redesigned like the shorter nose, immediately caused discussion for those five small carbon slots that tie the last flap to the third element. Maranello reintroduced that solution that the FIA had rejected to Mercedes in last year's Mexican GP.
All it took was to remove a little word, "mainly," from the 2023 technical regulations to make perfectly legal a concept that the Star wanted to pass off as a series of structural supports, while they had a distinct aerodynamic function.
But the redhead also exhibited another novelty, a technical first that is bound to make engineers, observers and analysts debate. David Sanchez, creative Head of Vehicle Concept, identified areas of the SF-23 where it should be possible to look for performance, and the team of aerodynamicists led by Diego Tondi, Head of Aero Development, came up with an S-duct.
Not under the nose as we had seen just on Ferrari in 2008, but on the SF-23 the S-duct ingeniously connects the open vertical slot at the root of the chassis, just below the of the radiator port, with a duct that vents the flow from a two-stage periscope that blows over the hollowed-out part of the belly.
And immediately the speculation started as to what this system could be used for: some people spoke of the vertical intake as a tool aimed at cooling the ECUs and those parts that until last year could find a place in the cockpit, while now the cockpit must have been freed of any accessories for just safety reasons.
Others have interpreted the "periscope" as an additional cooling intake, considering that Ferrari has smaller radiators than those fitted on the F1-75.
In reality, the narrow air vent seen on the sides of the cockpit does not directly extract heat from the bellies: if anything, with the cool flow coming from under the inlets, it is possible to speed up the suction of hot air from the gills, allowing better fluid dynamics inside the bellies and, therefore, the louvers may be smaller to the benefit of aerodynamic efficiency.
And, having found out what the system was called by the Cavallino's engineers, all doubts have melted away: inside the Racing Department we talk about "bypass duct," so from this moment we adopt this name identifying an innovative solution that is bound to make people talk in the coming days.
The FIA, for example, has not yet wanted to express an opinion on the idea of Dondi's staff, because the checks on the legality of the cars are not yet finished and there will be thorough checks in Bahrain.
Ferrari certainly has informed the International Federation about its desire to introduce the "bypass duct," complying with a technical regulation that since last year has required compliance with volumes and not measurements, so feedback on certain ideas becomes complicated if you do not have a CAD program.
In the wind tunnel, Tondi and his staff (there are about 20 of them) must have seen some benefits, and judging by the smiles on the smiles of the drivers, Leclerc and Sainz, after yesterday's filming day, and the data collected on the track at Fiorano, confirmation must have come to the numbers seen in the simulation programs.