A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
According to F1InGenerale.com, Leclerc tested 2 different engine covers and maybe different sidepods during the filming day.
In my opinion the sidepods didn't change and the differences are due to the different light and perspective.
Agreed, photos of bigger shark fin are far worse in quality so they must have seen things that aren't there. Interesting that the team wanted to check such a fairly minor detail as shark fin size, even if they did so by simply taping another plate to existing part.
Charles, SF24, not so good as previous video with Carlos, but I think SF24 is more suited to Charles.
That makes me confident.
If they manage good in season development, I am optimistic that SF24 can gives us a good 2024 campagna.
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
Finally reasonable post/explanation about "the launch car being simple"
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
Starting simple to then commit themselves to a certain direction seems like a reasonable thing to do considering it’s their first car with this new concept/philosophy.
Cardile said that they first want to make sure that what they’re seeing on track matches their data and then start putting developments on the car. You can say that this is a different approach from Ferrari compared to last years.
I’m thinking if they might do something like Mercedes or Alpine with the sidepod inlets because of the already existing S-duct. This would give them a better opportunity shrinking the sidepods than with a letterbox design. Is it even possible for Ferrari to have such inlets like RBR and AMR with the cooling concept they have? Maybe I’m totally wrong, though.
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
Finally reasonable post/explanation about "the launch car being simple"
And in addition to "simple", the other criticism has been "swimming against the suspension trend". I think there are reasons to suggest that Ferrari's prior suspension was mechanically superior (i.e. performance on over curbs e.g. Singapore, Vegas) and so if they feel they can find the aero benefits in non-suspension-related ways, it feels odd for this to be characterised as "risky" (it would be more risky to change that imho).
I think it’s all a case of time will tell once testing starts. I was originally disappointed in the car as it does look simpler compared to the likes of the AMR and what we’ve previously seen from RBR. HOWEVER.
I think reflecting, it’s probably a good thing. Like many have said on here already, it gives them so many different directions to tweak the car towards.
Looking at the car in testing, visibly no propoising, car looks to rotate better and less understeer, if it carries better speed through the corners, it needs to be less aggressive in the exit and entry points which save tyres?
I think the floor and sidepods will be the focus areas for development for the season, whereas last season nearly everything needed changing and understanding again half way through the season.
For all the complaints of the launch car being simple, it's now clear why not going fully committed with a single type of inlet solution was the right thing to do. Every other Top 5 car features a different inlet philosophy and Alpine has a peculiar arch tunnel in the undercut, so now Ferrari can gather info and chose the best way for their future development direction.
On top of that, their sidepods can likely be shrink wrapped a bit. Both of those developments are completely minor, but they left themselves a lot of room to switch development direction if they want to, not sure RB and AMR will be able to do that. And again, the floor is where the magic happens, so they can now focus on developing it for more performance instead of drivability only.
Finally reasonable post/explanation about "the launch car being simple"
And in addition to "simple", the other criticism has been "swimming against the suspension trend". I think there are reasons to suggest that Ferrari's prior suspension was mechanically superior (i.e. performance on over curbs e.g. Singapore, Vegas) and so if they feel they can find the aero benefits in non-suspension-related ways, it feels odd for this to be characterised as "risky" (it would be more risky to change that imho).
I’m glad Ferrari retained their suspension layouts on both ends which did not only make sense from a mechanical point of view, but also shows that they’re not intending to copy others blindly. I can confidently say that it made sense from a mechanical point of view simply because of the observations from last years when Ferrari without any doubt at all times was the car with best traction, curb riding, braking stability and performed well in twisty sections like in Baku. They even had the upper hand in slow speed corners when at the same time having understeer issues.
Looking at the the rear suspension from the SF-24 it’s mounted significantly different, so they kept a to them well known concept and further refined it - also confirmed by Cardile when he said it’s an innovative design.
