Ferrari SF23

[Vanja #66]

Floor edge treatment on the AM is also relatively simple so maybe the complexity of the furniture in this area is not necessarily an indicator of the effectiveness of the floor design.

You need to understand the baseline design. Both Ferrari and AMR made big changes, while RB evolved. It would be a big problem for both teams if they chose to use complex edge conditioners since that would mess up the interpretation of the core design. Ride height changes and their aerodynamic influence are extremely important with new cars and that must be understood from core design. Edge treatment can then further improve this behaviour, but if you don't fully understand your base you'll just end up messing up everything.

[LM10]

Any pictures of Ferrari’s bottom or did they cover it up?

[christian.falavena]

The "Box for refill" warning on Lec's steering wheel maybe indicates a pneumatic system's leak? Also Norris stopped a few times for that

[S D]

On the positive side. It looks as if they improved on the starts. This was a big issue last year that they said couldn't be fixed until the next year.

[bagajohny]

Fred said that the tyre deg is a set-up issue. I wonder if they will be able to fix it this season given it has carried on from the 2nd half of the last season & still they dont have any solution for it.

I suspect floor is the key here since the only two teams good with tyre deg are RB & AM.

[deadhead]

Fred said that the tyre deg is a set-up issue. I wonder if they will be able to fix it this season given it has carried on from the 2nd half of the last season & still they dont have any solution for it.

I suspect floor is the key here since the only two teams good with tyre deg are RB & AM.

I think its the ride height, which is also floor related I guess, but also suspension.. I have no idea, all I can tell is that ever since they had to raise the floor at Spa last year the car started eating tires and it hasn't stopped since.

[scuderiabrandon]

Fred said that the tyre deg is a set-up issue. I wonder if they will be able to fix it this season given it has carried on from the 2nd half of the last season & still they dont have any solution for it.

I suspect floor is the key here since the only two teams good with tyre deg are RB & AM.

Front end limitations and sub optimal rear wing choice. Both root causes of tyre degradation. Neither of these could be resolved at this race. They were forced to deal with it. We lacked overall downforce to put it short.

[Vanja #66]

I've seen it reported in another forum that it was a control electronics issue which is the part they replaced just before the race.

Duchessa, Albano will confirm it shortly of course.

Makes sense, had to be something "stupid"... We'll be hearing details soon.

[FDD]

I've seen it reported in another forum that it was a control electronics issue which is the part they replaced just before the race.

Duchessa, Albano will confirm it shortly of course.

Makes sense, had to be something "stupid"... We'll be hearing details soon.

The problem is stupid by I think if they already replaced ECU before the race and they need to replace it again Leclerc will get some grid penalty, if I correctly understand the rules in that part.

[matteosc]

Fred said that the tyre deg is a set-up issue. I wonder if they will be able to fix it this season given it has carried on from the 2nd half of the last season & still they dont have any solution for it.

I suspect floor is the key here since the only two teams good with tyre deg are RB & AM.

Front end limitations and sub optimal rear wing choice. Both root causes of tyre degradation. Neither of these could be resolved at this race. They were forced to deal with it. We lacked overall downforce to put it short.

I don't think its that small issue. Ferrari is the only car porpoising so much this year. Even Sainz complained about it towards the end. Pat said in the testing that SF23 was the only car porpoising so much this year.

Last year I thought that the car philosophy was right because F1-75 had good pace compared to RB18 & that the porpoising was due to suspension not being good enough. This year SF23 has been upgraded in all those areas. But if you look at the entire grid right now you can see that the only cars not having tyre degradation problem are the cars that went with RB philosophy. Haas, Merc & Ferrari all have tyre deg issues. Seeing this I am starting to doubt if Ferrari went in wrong direction with the car philosophy. No matter how much they develop this concept the inherent problems are not going away unless they go the RB philosophy.

SF23 had slower race pace even compared to F1-75 this race. Which is unacceptable given all the improvements with tyres & PU. SF23 has also lost the strengths of F1-75 by trying to improve the straight line speed which also is not much advantage (just 4kph).

All in all they have not been able to fix any issues the car had for the last 7-8 months. The only improvement this year being PU reliability. Even considering the high deg nature of Bahrain track SF23 is nowhere near the pace of RB19 (VER was not even pushing this race & had 1s advantage) so challenging for championship is not at all realistic.

I think that for this race they had the issue of not being able to use higher downforce wings (rear was broken, front may have not been ready because they didn’t think they needed it). The consequence seems to have been (at least to me) that they had to lower the car a lot, to get an acceptable downforce level. Higher proposing may easily start from this. Plus, non optimal balance is likely related.

[Xwang]

If I'm not wrong sf23 is the only car with the lower lateral anti crash cone above the floor level (maybe Haas is the same), so if they would like to decide to move towards RB concept, they cannot.
It seems they are very confident and proud of their design... Which is not working.
IMHO it resemble the SF90 with weaker engine.

[F1NAC]

If I'm not wrong sf23 is the only car with the lower lateral anti crash cone above the floor level (maybe Haas is the same), so if they would like to decide to move towards RB concept, they cannot.
It seems they are very confident and proud of their design... Which is not working.
IMHO it resemble the SF90 with weaker engine.

Even with the lower SIS like RB has, they would be miles back after switching to RB concept and wouldn't have enough WT , CFD time to develop the proper contender this season. Concept is not trash. Qualies show that. It is just that come Sunday, car transformed into W04.

[Vanja #66]

If I'm not wrong sf23 is the only car with the lower lateral anti crash cone above the floor level (maybe Haas is the same), so if they would like to decide to move towards RB concept, they cannot.
It seems they are very confident and proud of their design... Which is not working.
IMHO it resemble the SF90 with weaker engine.

Why would they want to move to RB concept? How is their design not working exactly?

They had problems with both wings, which forced them to compromise the setup. Literally the simplest thing to do is to add wing downforce and Ferrari has as much room to add wings as RB, if not more. In terms of aerodynamics, chassis (without wings) and floor design are the best on the grid.

Hard to tell if RB is at exactly the same level, but both cars are very low drag and very efficient on aero. Core aero is not where the Red Bull has an advantage, unlike last year.

The problem is stupid by I think if they already replaced ECU before the race and they need to replace it again Leclerc will get some grid penalty, if I correctly understand the rules in that part.

That remains to be seen, it's not impossible both units can be salvaged. They will push like hell to finish that in 10 days, for at least one of them

[Xwang]

If I'm not wrong sf23 is the only car with the lower lateral anti crash cone above the floor level (maybe Haas is the same), so if they would like to decide to move towards RB concept, they cannot.
It seems they are very confident and proud of their design... Which is not working.
IMHO it resemble the SF90 with weaker engine.

Why would they want to move to RB concept? How is their design not working exactly?

They had problems with both wings, which forced them to compromise the setup. Literally the simplest thing to do is to add wing downforce and Ferrari has as much room to add wings as RB, if not more. In terms of aerodynamics, chassis (without wings) and floor design are the best on the grid.

Hard to tell if RB is at exactly the same level, but both cars are very low drag and very efficient on aero. Core aero is not where the Red Bull has an advantage, unlike last year.

Sorry but I disagree. Ferrari has had to use small wing to avoid being slower in straights and in corners. The car keep being snappier and requiring a lot of corrections. Moreover it bounces more.
I really do not see this "best of the grid" things.
<lap time differences... removed>

[Vanja #66]

Sorry but I disagree. Ferrari has had to use small wing to avoid being slower in straights and in corners. The car keep being snappier and requiring a lot of corrections. Moreover it bounces more.
I really do not see this "best of the grid" things.
I see a team that cannot use bigger wings and with small wings do not get a sufficient speed advantage. ...

You can disagree of course, but RB19 rear wing is only slightly bigger than the one SF-23 had and its drag is very close. Certainly not worth the advantage of 3-4kmh on the straight with DRS closed that SF-23 had. For reference, Mercedes was "just" +6kmh with much smaller wing in FP3 with DRS on:



I can't understand why people have a problem with bouncing. Before TD39 Ferrari was bouncing and it was the fastest car, slight bouncing means you have reached the limit of floor downfoce for a particular suspension setting