Ferrari unveiled an upgrade package ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix that signified a change in its aerodynamic approach in comparison to the car revealed at the start of the new era last season.
With a clean sheet of paper, when the wraps were taken off the designs, there were fundamental differences, with the bulbous ‘bathtub’ shape of the sidepods on the F1-75 certainly eye-catching.
For the start of this season with the SF-23, Ferrari refined the curvature of its bodywork, only to seemingly then recognise it had reached the limitations of what could be achieved.
At Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, there was a noticeable change in the sidepod which now features a downwash ramp that, according to the team, “focuses on flow conditioning towards the rear wing assembly and rear corner, combined with a different cooling flow management, for overall car efficiency improvements”.
Given the success Red Bull has enjoyed under the new regulations, such styling has become the ‘go-to’ design.
Jock Clear, a veteran F1 engineer with more than 30 years experience in the sport, the last eight of which have been with Ferrari where he currently serves as Charles Leclerc’s performance engineer, insisted the team was “convinced” about the direction on which it started out last year.
“We all then have to learn from what other people are doing, but we also have to learn from what we’re doing,” said Clear.
“We’re not copying anyone, per se. We’re looking at what they did, we’re going back to our tunnel and trying to find out if that works. It’s appeared on the car now because it works. Ultimately, we only follow the science.
“The great thing about aerodynamics, and a great thing about this sport and the reason we do it, in my case for 30 years, is because every day is different, every year is different, every car is different, and we’re still learning.
“There are a million ways to solve the problems and you’re never going to cover all of them, so as soon as you see what someone else is doing well, and you get that in your tunnel, you’re disciplined enough not to have a knee-jerk (reaction) and just chuck it on your car, because it won’t work.
“You have to give yourself a couple of months to get it sorted, to get it to work with your car, and what you see is the result of that.”
Indicating that what was seen in Barcelona was only the first step, similar to Mercedes with its upgrade package that was first witnessed in Monaco and proven to work and provide a platform in Spain, Clear added: “It’s going to lead to further development down that avenue.
“We’ve started to investigate a new avenue to go down and this is the result of that.”
The sidepods, however, are only secondary, according to Clear, with the greater changes applied to the floor.
Unveiling a new floor body, floor edge, and floor edge wing, the changes, in conjunction with the sidepod, are designed to ‘optimise local flow features for increased load benefits’.
In layman’s terms, the new design is crucial for the current era of ground-effect cars.
“What you see most visually on the sidepod is probably not a primary driver, I think that’s secondary,” said Clear.
“What you’re doing with the floor, with the diffuser, dictates where the downforce is coming from, and that then leads you to push air in different places above the floor.
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