Ferrari SF23

[Vanja #66]

This was literally just posted! What do Mercedes cars from 5 years ago have to do with SF-23?!?

Quite a few posts with lap time deltas to other teams, or 2021 cars, or what AMR did compared to what Mercedes dis compared to what RB did... poofed away.

This car. Hardware. Use the team threads for championship performance related stuff.

A reminder to everyone but specially to the new people (welcome!).
We know the season has just started and the passions are high, but...

The car threads are specially strictly moderated in this forum. Stick to this car and to hardware in the car threads.
Team politics and other team things, please in the team threads.
Lap times, happy faces, sensations and will they be faster/slower than XYZ, either in the team threads or in the race threads.

If your post is in this thread and is not centering on this car, the physical car, it might have been or might be deleted or moved.
Let's keep the awesome car threads on this forum
a) focused on the hardware and
b) awesome.

Anyone counting how many posts land, daily, on the car threads, should see why this needed.

Thanks.

[hollus]

That 2018 Mercedes is gone. On topic in the car threads, please!

[Andi76]

I don't think it's obvious at all, in fact I don't think it's true at all.

The car was among the best performing cars in the fast corners T5-6-7 and T11

https://i.imgur.com/0ZaZ7hC.jpeg

This is on the quali lap where you can see LEC keeping fast speed through T5-6-7 and T11 than VER.

And this is a lap in the race where VER was 0.8s faster than LEC (lap 11 so early enough in the race that everyone was still going pretty fast):

https://i.imgur.com/wrN3U0I.jpeg

You can see for yourself that where time loss happens is in traction zones.

The underfloor is not the primary factor in slow corners, below a certain speed the ground effect is meaningless compared to wing and mechanical grip. So no, it's not the aero philosophy of the car is the issue, the performance in high speed corners, even while massively nursing tires, is on par with VER.

Yes, good points so maybe I should have said more specifically they’re lacking a good, stable DF level at all attitudes and ride heights—i.e., a relatively flat (not peaky) aero map. Not to mention that the suspension compliance—for traction—needn’t be compromised to maintain aero performance.

DF is important at all speeds and pretty sure the floor contribution is not limited to high speeds. RB’s floor—with the most complex design as seen last year—must be generating a good amount of DF at slow corners.

With the new regulations a lot changed as we all know. Venturi Channels, huge diffusers... a larger diffuser has to be fed with more air given the entire floor is sealed and there is minimum flow encroachment into the main flow structure of the underflow. If the floor is not sealed properly sealed the suction of the diffuser tries to pull air from the surrounding environment this is the same reason why teams try to lower the edges of the floor to minimize the flow encroachment as the diffuser may get affected by the vector field of the incoming flow. But anyway - flat floors required lesser air volume to work and this is why they worked way better in the low-speed stuff. But as the airspeed is increased and the diffuser is fed with high air volume the venturi tunnels work better. Venturi needs more air to work, and the extraction of the diffuser in 2022/23 is way higher than the pre-2022 regulations. But they do not produce a lot of downforce in low-speed areas, and other things are more important there.

[ringo]

Vanja just curious why you think SF23 has the best underfloor. How do you deduce this?

[Vanja #66]

Shared best I would say. They had the most floor downforce until TD39 last year, they clearly have the most downforce of any car other than RB and RB had more rear wing. At worst, I wouldn't give RB's floor downforce advantage of more than 0.1s a lap over Ferrari, but I think there are many other things for Ferrari to sort before they can use the car to the fullest - which is masking all of their potential for everyone. After Australia it will be clearer and Baku will show us for good.

[Andi76]

La Stampa in Italy speculates that vibrations/bouncing caused by having to lower the car more than planned to get more downforce because the necessary rear wing with more downforce was not available, caused the defects on Leclerc's ECU.

[avantman]

After Australia it will be clearer and Baku will show us for good.

So, let's wait until Barcelona.

La Stampa in Italy speculates that vibrations/bouncing caused by having to lower the car more than planned to get more downforce because the necessary rear wing with more downforce was not available, caused the defects on Leclerc's ECU.

and why Sainz' ECU ran without any issues? So, it was only Leclerc with the faster setup? That all seems very strange...

[LM10]

and why Sainz' ECU ran without any issues? So, it was only Leclerc with the faster setup? That all seems very strange...

Since when does hardware need to fail on both cars at the same time?

[avantman]

and why Sainz' ECU ran without any issues? So, it was only Leclerc with the faster setup? That all seems very strange...

Since when does hardware need to fail on both cars at the same time?

What are the chances the same part to fail twice only on one of two same cars over two days(Saturday and Sunday). Especially a part which was supposed to have a life span of at least 12 full grand prix weekends. I haven't seen that so far. That's just strange.

[ing.]

The fact that they noticed an issue which led to changing the ES and control electronics before the race and the problem repeated itself during the race points to it being an installation problem that was not detected and not corrected with the installation of the new parts. Wiring fault, grounding fault or similar?

[keroro.90]

La Stampa in Italy speculates that vibrations/bouncing caused by having to lower the car more than planned to get more downforce because the necessary rear wing with more downforce was not available, caused the defects on Leclerc's ECU.

It seems that the problem was related to the pneumatic system. Before stopping CL got a "Box for Refill" on the steering wheel.

[LM10]

Still no picture of the SF-23 being put on the truck in the depths of the Internet? Or can we assume that there does not exist any picture because the car stayed next to the track and was towed with a cover by the Ferrari team after the race ended?

[One and Only]

If this car is tire eater then lack of speed in slow/medium corners can be explained simply by drivers trying to make tires last whole stint. I didn't notice drop off in car's performance by the end of the stint and their strategy wasn't so much different than others (apart from RB). So either car is indeed tire eater, or it isn't, but rather lacks performance.
Either way very hard to deduce from this race alone.

[Sevach]

Shared best I would say. They had the most floor downforce until TD39 last year, they clearly have the most downforce of any car other than RB and RB had more rear wing. At worst, I wouldn't give RB's floor downforce advantage of more than 0.1s a lap over Ferrari, but I think there are many other things for Ferrari to sort before they can use the car to the fullest - which is masking all of their potential for everyone. After Australia it will be clearer and Baku will show us for good.

La Stampa in Italy speculates that vibrations/bouncing caused by having to lower the car more than planned to get more downforce because the necessary rear wing with more downforce was not available, caused the defects on Leclerc's ECU.

The question now is are they paying too high a price to maximize this floor?
Is an extra hard suspension that is needed to run the car uber low the leading reason for the tire usage issues?

[ing.]

Sounds like the typical “peaky” floor design again requiring a suspension with compromised compliance to keep it working and still they have porpoising. In Italian, but basically the the car suffers from a weak front end and to gain some DF the car needed to be lowered. This triggered porpoising at an earlier than expected speed, the the suspension was stiffened and with that all the issues of drivability (oversteer) and poor tire life:



Hard to understand why they were not able to hit the ground running with a proper single-pillar RW when all they did was a warm over of last year’s car with the steering rack lowered (to where it should have been last year) and the lower SIS left as is—resulting in the silly little bumps and no development leeway for more undercut—while other teams basically revolutionized their cars.