[ 2020 ] Scuderia Ferrari - Ferrari

[trinidefender]

Posting this across from a user on the McLaren thread. Excerpts from a talk given by Peter Prodromou, a current aerodynamicist at McLaren who worked for Red Bull during their dominant V8 years, at the University of Glasgow. It concerns Vettel in that he is Ferrari driver so thought it would interest those here.

Following on from that, he spoke highly of Vettel particularly with regards RBR 2010-2011 as they developed their exhaust blown diffuser, which he was a 'huge' part of. They had the idea (exhaust fumes into downforce), but it was purely rear, and it was actually slower, being just understeer. Vettel was instrumental in testing and setup work, in unlocking that between late 2010 and into 2011, into overall, useable downforce and turning it into time. He says, unprompted: Vettel struggles with entry instability, which Ferrari were not good with last year, but did get better particularly around Singapore, where they brought improvements Vettel obviously preferred but Leclerc wasn't that bothered by. When Ferrari nail that for good, 'the press will eat their words' (about Vettel being past it).

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... iew_notes/

[PlatinumZealot]

So Vettel's weakness confirmed. Interesting.

[Zynerji]

I feel they all have the "weakness" of having a car not to their liking.

Calling this a "weakness" in Seb is like saying having a "GP2 Engine" was a weakness in Alonso...

[Mattchu]

So Vettel's weakness confirmed. Interesting.

I`d say most drivers don`t like an unstable front end on turn in, maybe Seb feeds off a good front more than others due to his driving style but unlike the Mercedes the Ferrari was terrible last year at the front early on, you regularly saw it understeer across corners!

[trinidefender]

If you look at all of the mistakes that Vettel has made, most seem to be brought on by rear end instability. If Ferrari are able to bring a car this year with a better rear end I believe that we will see a much more competitive and confident Seb that will take the fight to Charles, Red Bull and Mercedes (and I'm more of a Charles fan btw). You can see that last years car suffered greatly from rear end instability, look at the battles between CL and MV, the rear end of the Ferrari is all over the place when it's driven hard, Charles is just better able to drive around this problem.

[trinidefender]

I feel they all have the "weakness" of having a car not to their liking.

Calling this a "weakness" in Seb is like saying having a "GP2 Engine" was a weakness in Alonso...

While what you say has some merit it doesn't mean it's not a weakness. At the end of the day the car is the car and can only be changed so much to suit the driver, the driver will have to adapt.

It is said that the truly great drivers; Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Fangio, Senna, Alonso, Hamilton etc etc are great not because they can drive a car, setup perfectly to them, quickly. A monkey can be trained to do that. They are great because they can drive around the faults of the car and adapt themselves.

While Seb might be very very quick, probably the out and out quickest driver on the grid currently if he is on his best track with a car designed and setup perfectly for him. He reminds me of Prost in that regard, quicker than Senna on a good day but NEEDS a good setup for that to happen. That advantage seems to diminish rapidly if things aren't in his favour, that's why I would classify others above him.

[jumpingfish]

If you look at all of the mistakes that Vettel has made, most seem to be brought on by rear end instability. If Ferrari are able to bring a car this year with a better rear end I believe that we will see a much more competitive and confident Seb that will take the fight to Charles, Red Bull and Mercedes (and I'm more of a Charles fan btw). You can see that last years car suffered greatly from rear end instability, look at the battles between CL and MV, the rear end of the Ferrari is all over the place when it's driven hard, Charles is just better able to drive around this problem.

Totally agreed. So much jokes about Vettel's spins under pressure but in Hungary-2019 during qualy Leclerc also spun and crashed into barriers without any pressure - the car was so unstable.

[PlatinumZealot]

I feel they all have the "weakness" of having a car not to their liking.

Calling this a "weakness" in Seb is like saying having a "GP2 Engine" was a weakness in Alonso...

"Vettel struggles with instability" which we all knew, but this confirms and backs it up with data records from RedBull, which mean it even happens in a different family of cars. Very very strong evidence wouldn't you say? I don't think it is the end of the world. Once the car's balance suits him Sebastian can match anyone... LeClerc on the other hand, "the balance doesn't bother him as much" which we could sorta see even in his Sauber days.

[marvin78]

But does he get faster, when the balance is right? Maybe he is far behind Vettel then?! Then he is no WC material. For getting such a title you need to be faster than your teammate in a stable car (see Mercedes). Only spculation of course.

[NathanOlder]

But does he get faster, when the balance is right? Maybe he is far behind Vettel then?! Then he is no WC material. For getting such a title you need to be faster than your teammate in a stable car (see Mercedes). Only spculation of course.

But when the car was more stable (from Singapore onwards) there were 7 races to go. Seb finished ahead 3 times, Charles finished ahead 3 times, and in Brazil Charles was in the process of passing Seb and driving off in to the distance. So I guess with a stable car he still beat seb.

[bosyber]

And also being new in the car, less experienced - I hope Ferrari get the car stable, last seasons car was good in that respect during the last quarter after all, and that it means we can see Vettel get back to showing why Prodromou has such respect for the guy, but I wouldn't bet that Leclerc would be left behind so simply.

Still that interview was great thanks for posting it! I found

He is sceptical the 2021 rules will improve overtaking, .. problem is they're not actually firm or set yet for good. He expects we will see immediate obvious differentiation, and actually a larger field spread, but the nature of the regs (which he likes) is that you will be able to copy the opposition and find their time much easier. ... So the cars will start further apart but converge hugely across the season, probably, because they're less 'devil in the detail' than the current regs are.

That would indeed be interesting, especially for people on this forum as it will be less about tiny differences we can't really judge, and more about (obviously?) right and wrong choices then.

[Zynerji]

I feel they all have the "weakness" of having a car not to their liking.

Calling this a "weakness" in Seb is like saying having a "GP2 Engine" was a weakness in Alonso...

"Vettel struggles with instability" which we all knew, but this confirms and backs it up with data records from RedBull, which mean it even happens in a different family of cars. Very very strong evidence wouldn't you say? I don't think it is the end of the world. Once the car's balance suits him Sebastian can match anyone... LeClerc on the other hand, "the balance doesn't bother him as much" which we could sorta see even in his Sauber days.

I would say this is no different than Kimi's power steering needs that are well documented.

I agree that sometimes driving around a problem has its on-the-spot benefits, but the experience factor can also make a driver unwilling to do such things, simply because they know that there is a better (consistent/ faster/tyre saving) way to get the same time.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw

[Sevach]

I feel they all have the "weakness" of having a car not to their liking.

Calling this a "weakness" in Seb is like saying having a "GP2 Engine" was a weakness in Alonso...

"Vettel struggles with instability" which we all knew, but this confirms and backs it up with data records from RedBull, which mean it even happens in a different family of cars. Very very strong evidence wouldn't you say? I don't think it is the end of the world. Once the car's balance suits him Sebastian can match anyone... LeClerc on the other hand, "the balance doesn't bother him as much" which we could sorta see even in his Sauber days.

Vettel is a difficult one to narrow down in terms of style because he isn't your traditional understeer guy.
My take is that he likes to toss the car into the corner in a way where the car would normally understeer on exit, he then uses the throttle on mid/exit to manipulate the position of the car.
That would indeed mean that the ideal "toy" for Sebastian requires copious amounts of rear grip.

Regarding Leclerc, 0 chance he's going to roll over and show his belly no matter how comfortable Seb is with the new car.
To me he seems Alonso like in the way he can force the car to do what he wants.

[Ringleheim]

Leclerc will test 18" tyres
https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-fe ... i/4674741/

Interestingly, Mattia Binotto has decided to deploy only the pilot who has a valid contract for next season (Charles has extended until 2023), while Sebastian Vettel is expiring agreement at the end of this season and will have to negotiate during the season the possible renewal.
The vision, therefore, is very clear, and we believe this, but someone suggests that we can also read a hierarchy of the Scuderia on the approach to the season of the two riders of the Cavallino.

What I can't understand is the Italian media's attempts to look everywhere for hidden meanings, conspiracies, political aspects and so on in the ordinary decisions of the team management.
"Leclerc will test, and Vettel - not. Aha! Is Vettel's career over? NicoRosberg.jpg"
Can anyone find similar in the British or German media about Russel testing tires instead of Ham or Bottas? Maybe when Sirotkin was testing 18" the French assumed Ricciardo will be expelled?

It's not just in Italy. The tabloid Press is bad like that all over the world.

Vettel is likely on his way out. At least I hope he is, as a fan of the team.

Doubt his contract gets renewed.

I think we will see that Ferrari was much more aggressive with the design of this year's car than they might otherwise have been, because of the dramatic rule change for 2021.

This is a lame duck season with nothing to lose, in a sense, because it's all going to change dramatically after this year. So all that there is to be gained are wins and a shot at the championship. I think Ferrari will be very aggressive with the car in this sense.

We'll find out next week. Or at least start to find out!

[izzy]

Vettel is likely on his way out. At least I hope he is, as a fan of the team.
Doubt his contract gets renewed.

I think we will see that Ferrari was much more aggressive with the design of this year's car than they might otherwise have been, because of the dramatic rule change for 2021.

This is a lame duck season with nothing to lose, in a sense, because it's all going to change dramatically after this year. So all that there is to be gained are wins and a shot at the championship. I think Ferrari will be very aggressive with the car in this sense.

They like Seb in the team, i think he just has to not take Charles out any more, to keep his seat

On the car, it's risky being 'aggressive', that's how the suspension broke in Austin and Mercedes went the whole year being compromised by their cooling. Also the Haas that Ferrari do the concept for seems to have the inboard biased cascade wings again so that suggests to me their own car will be a development, more than anything completely new. I bet it's the same recipe as Mercedes: mega hot combustion, fancy new AM methods and cooling to enable that, and even tinier packaging to go with that

I think it'll be close this year. Nobody will be taking their foot off the gas, especially Ferrari after another year with no championships