TECH DEBRIEF: How has Ferrari updated its troublesome Barcelona floor at Monza?
Although the layout of the Monza circuit might have been the main factor in Ferrari's strong showing on home turf, the Scuderia's latest developments have definetly contributed to Charles Leclerc's emotional victory at the Italian Grand Prix. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo analyses Ferrari's recent upgrade package.
Before the Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari introduced two comprehensive set of upgrades, having brought heavily-modified parts to Imola and Barcelona. The Scuderia had been expected to introduce its last big upgrade package either in Baku or Singapore, but it managed to push the new kit forward to its second home race of the season.
The team introduced a new floor at Barcelona at the end of June. While that design produced significantly more downforce, it also induced porpoising in high-speed corners which has held the team's performance back for several races.
Ferrari’s chief performance engineer Jock Clear noted: “Our Barcelona floor did produce a lot more downforce, but really did cause a lot of bouncing. The path of aero philosophy we were travelling down hasn’t changed. But the bouncing was undermining all of that, so we’ve reacted to it to manage the bouncing.”
The final European round saw Ferrari debut some development parts as well as the Monza-specific very low downforce rear wing.
The upgrade package centred around a new floor, with a reshaped central flat-floor ‘canoe’ section, and appropriate changes to the angles of the floor fences at the tunnel inlets, new floor edge detail, a revised expansion ramp to the diffuser and a greater coke bottle cutout.
Although Ferrari introduced minor changes to its Barcelona floor at Budapest to mitigate porpoising, the team has now altered the floor entirely.
The new design features updated front floor fences which target an improvement of the losses travelling downstream. The reshaped boat and tunnel expansion have also been subsequently reoptimized while Ferrari has also made changes to the floor edge and the diffusor expansion.
Although it was not a huge tweak, but the Maranello-based team has also updated the sidepods, introducing a new design with a more pronounced undercut.
In addition, the Scuderia updated the nose, as well. The position of the nose camera has been slightly tweaked in order to achieve a better interaction between front wing upwash and front suspension legs, offering an improved flow quality downstream.
The team also altered the mirror stay, introducing a shorter design compared to the previous one. The Italian outfit noted that "as for the nose camera update, the primary aim is to improve flow quality towards the back of the car."
Furthermore, Ferrari was among several teams which developed a Monza-specific rear wing. The new assembly featured "depowered top and lower rear wing profiles in order to adapt to Monza layout peculiarities and efficiency requirements." Interestingly, the Scuderia also brought its last year's Monza rear wing as a back-up solution if the new design had not behaved as expected.
To achieve a good aerodynamic balance, Ferrari also brought a "depowered" front wing flap to Monza. Similar to the rear wing, the Italian team had a range of trims available to allow modulation.
Expanding on Ferrari's latest upgrade package, team boss Fred Vasseur said that the Scuderia has been chasing more consistency wih its SF-24.
"For sure, we are all looking after consistency from session to session or from event to event. But we are also in the situation that we are developing this car now for three years or four years. It's becoming more and more difficult to bring performance to the car and we have to take a bit more risk on this and sometimes it's paying off, sometimes a bit less."
