2023 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Z-one]

You can always link a translated article:

https://www-formulapassion-it.translate ... r_pto=wapp

Overall, it speaks of what we already know - the car seems to be lacking balance with high-load rear wing.

Still, I can't help but notice this wasn't the problem in Monaco. The car was ok-ish in general and would have been on a podium if Xavi did his job and warned Leclerc of Norris in the tunnel in Q3. It's a rear-limited track, but it's not like you can drive there without a front wing. The trouble comes with new sidepods and floor edge in Barcelona (a telling sign of troubles to come with the use of mid-high DF wing instead of pure high DF as seen in Monaco). Since then, both the floor and the front wing philosophy were changed, so why did the problem persist?

I believe it may have to do with front wing, front suspension and sidepod intake aerodynamic interaction, forcing Ferrari to beat around the bush with front wing changes, but ultimately unable to change the whole wing philosophy sufficiently. However, there is a chance they made a mistake with Austria floor redesign and the operational limit of the floor CoP is now simply slightly too far back...

The car is generally very good in most of the recent tracks, there are no balance issues and it behaves well on medium and lower downforce tracks. This points to previously reported problems with rear end instability (likely connected to rear tyre squirt messing with diffuser performance) under control, so these issues with balance are related to "pure" aerodynamic balance issues. Truth be told, for a car that was changed so much this year, it's not a strange thing to experience design limitations that lead to such compromises.

yes， with high or middle high downforce setting，the car cannot work in front limited circuit， especially in long circuit，fortunately Singapore is not this kind，it is a total stop & go circuit

[JPower]

I agree totally that this duo won't work long term due to the preferential differences they have in terms of car balance or Ferrari need start to cater to only one side of the garage. So far with the sample size we have, Ferrari have generally been more competitive when the car suits LEC more.

Correlation not causation.

In general, almost every Ferrari over the hybrid era has had some weird handling characteristic or defect that rears its head across the season regardless of who is in the driver lineup whether it be Alonso/Seb/Kimi/Leclerc/Sainz.

So no, I don't think performance is driven by which driver finds what balance more comfortable, more the Ferrari chassis/aero departments moving in different directions to where they think is best and sometimes benefitting one driver over another at some particular point in a season.

I think you all are giving the drivers' perferences too much credit in how these cars have performed on track. Having aero balance issues, design flaws, and lack of tire understanding are bigger issues are than who likes oversteer or understeer more. The SF-23 doesn't handle well for either driver. It sucks. Plain and simple. If both drivers were replaced with anyone else on the grid, it would still be the same unbalanced, unpredictable mess its been all season.

[scuderiabrandon]

I agree totally that this duo won't work long term due to the preferential differences they have in terms of car balance or Ferrari need start to cater to only one side of the garage. So far with the sample size we have, Ferrari have generally been more competitive when the car suits LEC more.

Correlation not causation.

In general, almost every Ferrari over the hybrid era has had some weird handling characteristic or defect that rears its head across the season regardless of who is in the driver lineup whether it be Alonso/Seb/Kimi/Leclerc/Sainz.

So no, I don't think performance is driven by which driver finds what balance more comfortable, more the Ferrari chassis/aero departments moving in different directions to where they think is best and sometimes benefitting one driver over another at some particular point in a season.

I think you all are giving the drivers' perferences too much credit in how these cars have performed on track.

The issue is with different preferences you get different feedback, that makes it harder to pursue one particular direction.

I think you all are giving the drivers' perferences too much credit in how these cars have performed on track.

It is just a general observation, '22 you had a one sided affair, Sainz' was vocal about how the car didn't suit his style, iirc even Sainz' Sr. made some comments about Ferrari making changes for '23 to suit Jr. more (around Austin maybe??). '23 the gap has closed down between the 2 drivers but now you LEC is vocally upset about the balance of the car.

No one is debating the fact that the car is slow, and regardless who it suits more this season, it will probably still be slow. We are generally discussing the fact that Ferrari should make a decision on whose style to preference more. It would give them a lot less headaches trying to cater to 2 different driving styles. The driver they choose to preference might also consistently perform better.

[AR3-GP]

There's a slight possibility that people are confusing Sainz's preference with Ferrari simply making the car worse due to their own deficiencies. This coinciding with Sainz liking the car may be entirely coincidental. Ferrari has not had correlation for over a year so claiming that they are able to make the car suit Sainz at will, is...questionable?

They haven't been able to make their simulator car (the one that was supposed to suit 1 driver, or both, or none and be 1 second faster), match what is currently on the track, so who the car was intended to suit in the simulator is completely detached from what is currently lapping the track and who the real SF23 suits is more likely entirely coincidental. The car on the track isn't the one from the simulator.

All of Ferrari's issues smack of a floor which is too sensitive to off-peak ride parameters. Vasseur's comments about a clean sheet for next year are encouraging.

[JPower]

There's a slight possibility that people are confusing Sainz's preference with Ferrari simply making the car worse due to their own deficiencies. This coinciding with Sainz liking the car may be entirely coincidental. Ferrari has not had correlation for over a year so claiming that they are able to make the car suit Sainz at will, is...questionable?

They haven't been able to make their simulator car (the one that was supposed to suit 1 driver, or both, or none and be 1 second faster), match what is currently on the track, so who the car was intended to suit in the simulator is completely detached from what is currently lapping the track and who the real SF23 suits is more likely entirely coincidental. The car on the track isn't the one from the simulator.

All of Ferrari's issues smack of a floor which is too sensitive to off-peak ride parameters. Vasseur's comments about a clean sheet for next year are encouraging.

Exactly.

If Ferrari can't get the car to do what it wants regardless of driver, than this whole argument of which driver the car suits more is bunk.

[Z-one]

There's a slight possibility that people are confusing Sainz's preference with Ferrari simply making the car worse due to their own deficiencies. This coinciding with Sainz liking the car may be entirely coincidental. Ferrari has not had correlation for over a year so claiming that they are able to make the car suit Sainz at will, is...questionable?

They haven't been able to make their simulator car (the one that was supposed to suit 1 driver, or both, or none and be 1 second faster), match what is currently on the track, so who the car was intended to suit in the simulator is completely detached from what is currently lapping the track and who the real SF23 suits is more likely entirely coincidental. The car on the track isn't the one from the simulator.

Generally，a sh*t box will usually understeer because if it use oversteer set up，it will spin. which confuse Ferrari
much more is the combination of VD and aero, instead of aero itself. Ferrari engineer in aero maybe the most talented, looking the SIS in 2017, the bathtub in 2022, but even the most aggressive idea should be supported by chassis，suspension，tyre，which are the weakness of technical team. after 2018, Ferrari always suffered from tyre management, balance, could be rooted in this reason

[Xyz22]

What we know is that when the car is extremely limited on the front end the difference between Leclerc and Sainz become smaller. This is because Sainz doesn't rely much on the front tyres and use his driving style to rotate the car as quickly as possible. He had a great interview about this with Ted Kravitz during pre season testing (about the new tyres aimed at reducing the understeer would help him and he said that wasn't the case because of what i wrote earlier. F1 took it down, so it's not available any more). I think Carlos would have been extremely quick with the 2010 - 2013 cars as they had an insane amount of rear downforce, especially the RBs.

The issue is that cars which are massively front end limited are usually not competitive, as we are seeing this year.

In fact Sainz's best performance last year compared to Leclerc when they had the same strategy was Mexico, probably the lowest point for Ferrari in 2022.

I don't think Ferrari did this on purpose, despite some strange comments made by the management last year.

[codetower]

I haven't seen it posted here yet, but here's the new LeMans inspired Monza livery:

[dialtone]

Hard to say that this is a correlation issue. Clearly they have made the car better than at the start of the year so whatever they use, they have seen positive correlation and it worked on track.

They may have had a very localized correlation problem, perhaps on ride height or calculating floor performance under the conditions that happen during high load mid-speed front limited corners.

I don’t blame them too much, Mercedes has spent the last 2 years figuring this same stuff out. Only RBR is exceptional, of everyone else Ferrari might even be best of rest, or almost. There’s no testing, no wind tunnel really and budget cap… if you don’t nail it, you’re hardly going to catch up.

[AR3-GP]

Hard to say that this is a correlation issue. Clearly they have made the car better than at the start of the year so whatever they use, they have seen positive correlation and it worked on track.

To argue that they deliberately designed this car this way does not flatter anyone.

Also difficult to know how much is car improvement and how much is suiting the track. After all, Leclerc finished P2 in Bahrain (ignoring the DNF...) which was expected to suit them. P2 in Spa again.

It makes more sense to me that much of what they are experiencing is not predicted by simulations.

[Xyz22]

Hard to say that this is a correlation issue. Clearly they have made the car better than at the start of the year so whatever they use, they have seen positive correlation and it worked on track.

To argue that they deliberately designed this car this way does not flatter anyone.

Also difficult to know how much is car improvement and how much is suiting the track. After all, Leclerc finished P2 in Bahrain (ignoring the DNF...) which was expected to suit them. P2 in Spa again.

It makes more sense to me that much of what they are experiencing is not predicted by simulations.

It was P3 and in Bahrain Alo was significantly quicker if we look at the pure pace.

[KimiRai]

Hard to say that this is a correlation issue. Clearly they have made the car better than at the start of the year so whatever they use, they have seen positive correlation and it worked on track.

To argue that they deliberately designed this car this way does not flatter anyone.

Also difficult to know how much is car improvement and how much is suiting the track. After all, Leclerc finished P2 in Bahrain (ignoring the DNF...) which was expected to suit them. P2 in Spa again.

It makes more sense to me that much of what they are experiencing is not predicted by simulations.

It was P3 and in Bahrain Alo was significantly quicker if we look at the pure pace.

If the pure pace of a car is usually understood as the qualifying lap where both machine and driver are pushed to the limit... then Ferrari, and Charles, were quicker. Aston later were quicker in the race for the most part due to tyre wear and to a lesser extent both the Silverstone team and Alonso traditionally favouring Sundays. I think Ferrari had higher pure pace but then they couldn't maintain it the same way over a long stint. The next race Charles also had qualified ahead of the Astons before the penalty, Melbourne is a write off, but in Miami a very similar thing would have happened if not for the crash. And I'm sure there's the Leclerc factor there but it seemed to be like that at the start of the season.

[Xyz22]

To argue that they deliberately designed this car this way does not flatter anyone.

Also difficult to know how much is car improvement and how much is suiting the track. After all, Leclerc finished P2 in Bahrain (ignoring the DNF...) which was expected to suit them. P2 in Spa again.

It makes more sense to me that much of what they are experiencing is not predicted by simulations.

It was P3 and in Bahrain Alo was significantly quicker if we look at the pure pace.

If the pure pace of a car is usually understood as the qualifying lap where both machine and driver are pushed to the limit... then Ferrari, and Charles, were quicker. Aston later were quicker in the race for the most part due to tyre wear and to a lesser extent both the Silverstone team and Alonso traditionally favouring Sundays. I think Ferrari had higher pure pace but then they couldn't maintain it the same way over a long stint. The next race Charles also had qualified ahead of the Astons before the penalty, Melbourne is a write off, but in Miami a very similar thing would have happened if not for the crash. And I'm sure there's the Leclerc factor there but it seemed to be like that at the start of the season.

Meant pure pace in the race of course. Alonso was capable of achieving lap times absolutely impossible for Charles in the race. Aston Martin was quicker.

[organic]

I expect pole at Monza despite the sf23. And hoping for Charles to be able to outpace Perez & be in the right place should max/RB have bad luck.

[AR3-GP]

I do not expect pole. This SF23 is even less of a weapon in qualy than the corrupted F1-75.