Ferrari SF23

[deadhead]

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?

That flex they had in the floor last year was brilliant and likely essential to this whole thing working properly.

[SoulPancake13]

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.

Article is pretty interesting. Confirms what many have speculated here: the lack of front compromised the setup heavily. Therefore, the talks of "lack of correlation" talk about the fact that the virtual setup would have been 4 tenths quicker and also softer on the tyres. Wonder exactly just what the problem is with the front wing - too much flex, or just flat out bad correlation? Either way, by lowering the car too far, Ferrari had to stiffen suspension and that killed the tyres. My guess is the goal will be to run the car a little higher, allowing for a softer suspension that creates a similar level of downforce. If you believe that the fix will come before Australia, then there is no need to panic, hence the calmness of Vasseur in the media.

Also, name which team revolutionized their car??? Maybe Aston Martin, but even still it seems like an evolution of their second spec car last season, although more extreme. Every other team has evolved, same as Ferrari, but the characteristics of Ferrari's car has completely changed. Brand new suspension is hard to figure out.

[AR3-GP]

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.

Article is pretty interesting. Confirms what many have speculated here: the lack of front compromised the setup heavily. Therefore, the talks of "lack of correlation" talk about the fact that the virtual setup would have been 4 tenths quicker and also softer on the tyres. Wonder exactly just what the problem is with the front wing - too much flex, or just flat out bad correlation? Either way, by lowering the car too far, Ferrari had to stiffen suspension and that killed the tyres. My guess is the goal will be to run the car a little higher, allowing for a softer suspension that creates a similar level of downforce. If you believe that the fix will come before Australia, then there is no need to panic, hence the calmness of Vasseur in the media.

Also, name which team revolutionized their car??? Maybe Aston Martin, but even still it seems like an evolution of their second spec car last season, although more extreme. Every other team has evolved, same as Ferrari, but the characteristics of Ferrari's car has completely changed. Brand new suspension is hard to figure out.

Raising the car is not better imo. Ideally you want both. Low and soft with very good suspension that can maintain heave stiffness, while supporting individual corner bump.

[SoulPancake13]

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.

Article is pretty interesting. Confirms what many have speculated here: the lack of front compromised the setup heavily. Therefore, the talks of "lack of correlation" talk about the fact that the virtual setup would have been 4 tenths quicker and also softer on the tyres. Wonder exactly just what the problem is with the front wing - too much flex, or just flat out bad correlation? Either way, by lowering the car too far, Ferrari had to stiffen suspension and that killed the tyres. My guess is the goal will be to run the car a little higher, allowing for a softer suspension that creates a similar level of downforce. If you believe that the fix will come before Australia, then there is no need to panic, hence the calmness of Vasseur in the media.

Also, name which team revolutionized their car??? Maybe Aston Martin, but even still it seems like an evolution of their second spec car last season, although more extreme. Every other team has evolved, same as Ferrari, but the characteristics of Ferrari's car has completely changed. Brand new suspension is hard to figure out.

Raising the car is not better imo. Ideally you want both. Low and soft with very good suspension that can maintain heave stiffness, while supporting individual corner bump.

Maybe raising the car isn't the right term, but Ferrari were forced to put the car extremely low with the stiff suspension. Maybe had the front wing worked as expected, the car would have been "sufficiently" low but with soft suspension? I am not an F1 engineer by any means but that makes sense to me.

[PlatinumZealot]

The car still has a good base and has the least amount of catching up to do.

[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?

Unfortunately, we don't know, but it is quite possible that the hard suspension is a reason. A hard suspension favors that the contact frequencies become too high. This would cause the compound to harden and stiffen. This could be compensated for with higher temperatures, which soften the rubber. But since the Ferrari drivers complain about too high temperatures that prevent them from pushing at all in the race, I think this is unlikely. However, it is conceivable that the suspension is not stiff enough. This problem is hard to pinpoint and it's quite possible that you develop a new suspension because you think the problems are in the geometry. Especially if you want to drive the car closer to the ground you need a stiff suspension. If you don't get the ride height vs. suspension stiffness set-up right, high tire degradation would be the inevitable result.

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.

Which Team has revolutionised their car? Mercedes - no. Red Bull - no. Alpine - no. Alpha Tauri - no. Williams - no. Wait - Alfa - no, sorry. But Aston Martin? No, they basically copied Red Bull with some Ferrari influence. Evolution instead of revolution has always been the way to the top.

At the risk of sounding a bit naive and knowing this is about the RB19;

I can't shake the thought that RB has linked the floor beams to the suspension. They can deform the floor with much higher force tha aero could circumventing stiffness regulations and they can flex it opposing to aero forces.

Rolling in a corner increases the downforce on the outside corner side and reduces the downforce on the inner corner side. This increases the rolling force on the car that needs to be countered with suspension. It also increases the load shift to the outer wheels.

If the suspension is linked to the floor and keeps the floor level while the car rolls, the inner corner tires take more of the load, reducing the load on the outer corner rear wheel. The aero does expert less rolling force, allowing for les stiff suspension setting.

But maybe thats just dumb...

The mechanism you describe sounds a lot like an "anti-roll bar" ?

It really does! Let's call it anti-floor bar! No, seriously - it would make sense by reducing lateral load transfer and thus also bring a big advantage in terms of tires and the floor would have a constant ground clearance. On the other hand, there would be a disadvantage with regard to the floor edges, which could certainly be completely compensated for by optimizing and adapting this concept in the wind tunnel.

Yeah unfortunately we can't know for sure, but that would be one of the possible reasons a car that understeers still kills their rear tires.

On the second topic, anti-roll bars, is there a thing like a 2 stage roll bar? We hear all the time about 2 stage dampers/springs, but i've never heard about the 2 stage roll bar, maybe something like this would be a help.

Mod edit: personal comment removed

[Stu]

Reference the above…
Have a look through the RB18 thread to see how RedBull have created such a system.
A clue…
They have started from the perspective of “how do we want the platform to be controlled (and behave)” - before moving on to determine the best method to achieve this with mechanically linked devices.

It is very unconventional; but once you see it, makes absolute sense.

[hollus]

Race pace and Q pace in the team thread, guys. Those posts have been deleted just above here.

[FDD]

"Internal investigations following the withdrawal of Charles Leclerc in the Bahrain GP have already yielded results: the wiring went into crisis due to inadequate fastening in the packaging between the engine and the chassis. And the analyzes carried out on the control units showed that the first of the two could be saved. The Monegasque rider, therefore, could avoid getting penalized already in the Saudi Arabian GP. However, the other structural failures that were seen in Sakhir on the red are worrying.
The electrical system literally went haywire due to the fastening of the inadequate wiring to the efforts it was subjected to on the Sakhir bumps. The problem has been identified and resolved: therefore, there was no human error Sunday morning in the frenetic replacement of the battery and control unit.
It follows that there was something that was not in a workmanlike manner in the packaging between the frame and the engine. An alarm signal that is amplified by the other sudden failures that have hit the SF-23 in Bahrain.
How can we forget the more loaded rear wing that was unable to complete a few laps without serious problems. He had been pulled out on the final day of pre-season testing, but vanished almost immediately due to the DRS loss of leadership. Since he was in a one-of-a-kind model, he wasn't replaced by a spare, but forced the mechanics to reassemble the weaker wing that made its debut last year in Canada.
Fixed the control of the mobile wing, the wing with the single pylon was reintroduced in the first free practice session of the Bahrain GP. And, this time, it was the single pylon that broke, showing a main profile that swayed sideways in a worrying and dangerous way.
Three problems, three structural failures: what's going on? The reds have always passed for being very solid and robust single-seaters. The F1-23 in the run-up to lightening is paying a price that has probably already cost a withdrawal. Will they have understood the lesson in Maranello?"

[CMSMJ1]

A lot of non SF23 related posting moved to the tyre thread.

viewtopic.php?t=27487

Some great info in there, but it's not on topic in here

thanks

[FW17]

Ferrari seems to have a great engine with a lot of power to get it out of corners and sustained till the end of long straights. With its tyre issues similar to last year, rears, should Ferrari also look at better maps for the engine which could have a slightly lesser low end power that could help the rear tyres cope better at exits and traction zones?

[JPBD1990]

Ferrari seems to have a great engine with a lot of power to get it out of corners and sustained till the end of long straights. With its tyre issues similar to last year, rears, should Ferrari also look at better maps for the engine which could have a slightly lesser low end power that could help the rear tyres cope better at exits and traction zones?

I believe this season youre only allowed to update engine maps once?? It may be twice, I don’t remember… but basically they can’t just change them Willy nilly

[organic]

Ferrari seems to have a great engine with a lot of power to get it out of corners and sustained till the end of long straights. With its tyre issues similar to last year, rears, should Ferrari also look at better maps for the engine which could have a slightly lesser low end power that could help the rear tyres cope better at exits and traction zones?

I believe this season youre only allowed to update engine maps once?? It may be twice, I don’t remember… but basically they can’t just change them Willy nilly

Extra changes available for "reliability reasons" I imagine, as always.

[FW17]

I would have imagined that they would need one map with all possible conditions within that map.

[saviour stivala]

They and all else on the grid does need only one map that is as good in all conditions as possible for the whole season as that is what the rules allows now.