2024 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[venkyhere]

I think we are going in circles, with the wing level discussion.
Ferrari struggled with grip in the corners. Because the H was not working in the right temp window for them. Why ? It has to do with downforce, the front v rear downforce balance, the higher min-PSI change that Pirelli came up with on the morning of the race, the driving style of LeClerc (whether he was ready to drive less optimally in selective corners to work more heat into the rear), could they have done a H stint in FP1 etc etc. Lots of factors. Bottom line is, they didn't set their car optimally for this track.

Now, given this fact, there are two ways to look at the P4-P5 result :
A) given the suboptimal setup, P4-P5 (with only 1 non-Redbull ahead of them) is a great result, bag the points
B) the nature of the track - many slow turns, lower gear traction events, proper high-speed braking just before slow turn, one mega straight - all four of which are the USPs of the Ferrari - not having even one car on the podium is a disaster, it's a wasted opportunity where the track layout was so in sync with their strengths.

My view is B.

[Andres125sx]

Tire degradation was a problem, now that is fixed and Ferrari probably is best team in that regard, even better than RBR... so people now complain about how difficult is for Ferrari heating up tires...

You cannot have both guys, relax, it´s much more beneficial this behaviour than previous. Heating up tires fast is only good for rain and cold temperatures, but most tracks are high temp so degradation is a much bigger problem than heating up tires fast

Ferrari looks much stronger this season than previous, and previous, and previous. They´re not perfect, but they´re on the road

[Cs98]

Since tomorrow the conditions will be the same as today (maybe even more cloudy), I expect the cars in front will struggle a lot less with deg as the race goes on, unlike Suzuka. On the other hand, Leclerc might suffer in the early laps with his slow-to-heat-up setup. Ferrari have little choice, they will both have to back off in the first stint, extend it forever and watch how the race unfolds and go from there. One stop might be both doable and a very good choice in their case. I think they would do well to go M-M-S as I said today, making M-M stints until lap 45 could be doable and then go for a trail blaze run on Softs for 10 laps.

I'm not expecting a podium due to cold weather,

Nothing to add, SF24 being so gentle on the tyres was never going to be competitive in such cold weather. One-stop was a forced choice for Ferrari, making them use Hards which were always going to be an issue. While VSC helped Leclerc save some time while stopping, both SC periods effectively nullified that and evened things out for others. Not even McLaren failing to pull Norris in as soon as VSC period started was close to being punished

M-M-S would have been better for Ferrari like I said before, but with VSC period it didn't look like it would take more than 2 laps to get going again and taking Hards for a one-stop was the right choice for Leclerc. So even today in conditions which suited other cars a lot more, points haul was maxxed out, so big kudos to Vasseur and the team! Sainz was a bit slower than expected today (maybe got some damage earlier in the race) but still managed to get a decent P5.

I have zero fears for Miami, its gonna be hot and sunny and Ferrari are gonna enjoy the bright Florida spring Qualy will be back to regular too, no BS cold weather With some luck, a double podium is possible. And then roll on Imola

They need to work to fix the tyre warmup issues and not be dependent on weather. RB and especially max seems to be able to fire up tires at will.

Summer is coming!

[Cs98]

Whatever, both colder than the usual F1 tracks.

Last year Spa track temperature was 27° the whole race and Bahrain 2024 was 24° at start and 22° at end.
China was 30.5°

Car setup wasn’t right for China. They had the fastest top speed in the race and that was supposed to help in s3 but ultimately didn’t help enough and s1 was really bad.

It’s also obvious tire warmup played a big part here, at the start both Ferraris lost 2 positions, after 2 laps LEC pulled 2 great passes and the car wasn’t slower than Russell any more. We can speculate the why here and not in other races but we can’t really speculate it happened.

Leclerc also commented how the hard tire didn’t feel great after the restart and that would be the first time this year the harder tire wasn’t better on the Ferrari.

Neither Ferrari nor MCL got upgrades, especially not between sprint and race, so the pace difference is down to setup changes and turning on the tires. Again, we can speculate the why, but not the facts.

This wasn’t a good race and good job MCL. Ferrari has all the data to learn what happened and hopefully they do learn it.

There were no significant differences in top speed between Ferrari, McLaren and RB. Lap 36-38 is quite illustrative, after the SC restart when they were all running in free air (or relatively free air, tiny tow for Lec and Nor) from P1-P3. Differences are minimal.

[MattLightBlue]

Tire degradation was a problem, now that is fixed and Ferrari probably is best team in that regard, even better than RBR... so people now complain about how difficult is for Ferrari heating up tires...

You cannot have both guys, relax, it´s much more beneficial this behaviour than previous. Heating up tires fast is only good for rain and cold temperatures, but most tracks are high temp so degradation is a much bigger problem than heating up tires fast

Ferrari looks much stronger this season than previous, and previous, and previous. They´re not perfect, but they´re on the road

Ferrari is stronger indeed in this season. I don’t think RedBull is worse at tyre deg, in 2022 and partially in 2023 they had the same issue Ferrari is facing right now: they simply traded off some of the deg advantage for pure pace, which is useful in quali and in the first laps of the race.

The key, as said before here, is to have some DF advantage that lets you compromise on setup: let’s hope the new update package will be a step towards this direction.

[CouncilorIrissa]

https://formu1a.uno/en/vasseur-ferrari- ... ise-sf-24/

However, Fred Vasseur doesn’t want to hear excuses to justify Ferrari’s subpar weekend. “No one has tested on this track, and the situation was the same for us.

“It’s true that perhaps the asphalt issue hasn’t helped us, but it’s not an excuse. We made some mistakes in the preparation phase and others did better. It’s up to us to work to do better next time,” said the French engineer.

Love the no-BS assessment from Fred.

[Fakepivot]

https://formu1a.uno/en/vasseur-ferrari- ... ise-sf-24/

However, Fred Vasseur doesn’t want to hear excuses to justify Ferrari’s subpar weekend. “No one has tested on this track, and the situation was the same for us.

“It’s true that perhaps the asphalt issue hasn’t helped us, but it’s not an excuse. We made some mistakes in the preparation phase and others did better. It’s up to us to work to do better next time,” said the French engineer.

Love the no-BS assessment from Fred.

this is the way! if they can continue their consistency Ferrari and Charles/Carlos can have another win. Charles has not finished below top5 since last season spa...

[Xyz22]

https://formu1a.uno/en/vasseur-ferrari- ... ise-sf-24/

However, Fred Vasseur doesn’t want to hear excuses to justify Ferrari’s subpar weekend. “No one has tested on this track, and the situation was the same for us.

“It’s true that perhaps the asphalt issue hasn’t helped us, but it’s not an excuse. We made some mistakes in the preparation phase and others did better. It’s up to us to work to do better next time,” said the French engineer.

Love the no-BS assessment from Fred.

He is right. This wasn't a good weekend in terms of execution.

[Vanja #66]

I feel like we agree so not sure why you disagree .

Ferrari here was just plain slow even with LEC at the limit, so no sliding around when you lose 0.4 in 3 corners.

You can compensate tire grip by increasing wing, if you have it. Ferrari came here thinking it’s front limited but after the sprint it became much more balanced and their setup window was off.

If you can’t go fast, because your wings don’t compensate, you can’t put temperature in tires and they stay cold.

I understood your point from the start, but bigger wing would only hurt on straights. It's not only the rear, you need to balance the front and add more there so drag only goes up and up A consistent loss of just 3-5kmh on straights is about 5 tenths in China, just compare Q telemetry of Alpine and Ferrari

[dialtone]

I feel like we agree so not sure why you disagree .

Ferrari here was just plain slow even with LEC at the limit, so no sliding around when you lose 0.4 in 3 corners.

You can compensate tire grip by increasing wing, if you have it. Ferrari came here thinking it’s front limited but after the sprint it became much more balanced and their setup window was off.

If you can’t go fast, because your wings don’t compensate, you can’t put temperature in tires and they stay cold.

I understood your point from the start, but bigger wing would only hurt on straights. It's not only the rear, you need to balance the front and add more there so drag only goes up and up A consistent loss of just 3-5kmh on straights is about 5 tenths in China, just compare Q telemetry of Alpine and Ferrari

If MCL with a weaker engine can run more wing and do well, Ferrari can do the same, they were the ones out of place losing close to 1s a lap, not the rest.

[Silent Storm]

Vanja, won't a larger rear wing allow drivers to get back on power earlier and cancel out the 5 tenths loss on straight?

[Seanspeed]

Now, given this fact, there are two ways to look at the P4-P5 result :
A) given the suboptimal setup, P4-P5 (with only 1 non-Redbull ahead of them) is a great result, bag the points
B) the nature of the track - many slow turns, lower gear traction events, proper high-speed braking just before slow turn, one mega straight - all four of which are the USPs of the Ferrari - not having even one car on the podium is a disaster, it's a wasted opportunity where the track layout was so in sync with their strengths.

My view is B.

There are many ways to look at things that dont require some binary choice of either 'great' or 'disaster', though. I dont understand why having a nuanced perspective that can consider some middle ground after considering both points(and perhaps others as well) is just so impossible.

[Andres125sx]

Tire degradation was a problem, now that is fixed and Ferrari probably is best team in that regard, even better than RBR... so people now complain about how difficult is for Ferrari heating up tires...

You cannot have both guys, relax, it´s much more beneficial this behaviour than previous. Heating up tires fast is only good for rain and cold temperatures, but most tracks are high temp so degradation is a much bigger problem than heating up tires fast

Ferrari looks much stronger this season than previous, and previous, and previous. They´re not perfect, but they´re on the road

Ferrari is stronger indeed in this season. I don’t think RedBull is worse at tyre deg, in 2022 and partially in 2023 they had the same issue Ferrari is facing right now: they simply traded off some of the deg advantage for pure pace, which is useful in quali and in the first laps of the race.

The key, as said before here, is to have some DF advantage that lets you compromise on setup: let’s hope the new update package will be a step towards this direction.

Yeah the key is having some DF advantage, but that´s like saying the key is having fastest car out there

[Andres125sx]

Vanja, won't a larger rear wing allow drivers to get back on power earlier and cancel out the 5 tenths loss on straight?

I´m not Vanja, but nope. That would only improve acceleration phase, while drag by a larger wing will reduce both acceleration and top speed.

And that´s without even mentioning a larger rear wing will unbalance the car and behaviour going into corners, and mid corner, wich will be terrible. If increasing front wing too to keep balance, then drag will literally kill you

Also, increasing any wing over the optimum will make you slower at the straight, and your competition will anihilate you in the race. Even if the car is faster this way (wich is false), it´s useless if everybody pass you at the straights, and you can pass none because of the lower top speed

[dialtone]

That’s not correct.

This is a balance and your description forgets it.

Traction out of corners is mostly how you get to pass these days. Car in front has bad exit out of slow corner into straight and car behind makes the move at the end of the straight.

This is to say that a bad exit, of which Ferrari had plenty, influences top speed just as much as the wing, but more clearly, in quali you still get to use DRS, reducing the impact of the wing but still gaining in the corners. And in the race you spend more time in the early part of the straight, where traction matters, than at top speed, where wing matters.

It’s a balance and probably Ferrarid decided this balance was worth a try but didn’t work out. No big deal but it makes no sense to think that this was the absolutely only wing possible and this result was inevitable or due to something insurmountable or intrinsic.