Scuderia Ferrari recently announced that the new 2023 car will be presented on February 14, Valentine’s Day. Contrary to what was previously planned, it was decided to cancel the reservation of the Imola track in favour of a more classic presentation, in Maranello.
According to formu1a.uno, the time needed to logistically manage the presentation has essentially disappeared. The official car launch will finally take place in the presence of the press after the Covid period. Although the car is being finalized with some delay compared to the initial programme, serenity filters through the work in progress. The Maranello technicians are not worried, the optimization work seems to be proceeding very accurately. Compared to last season, there are fewer question marks, especially related to the power unit, and many more certainties related to aerodynamics and understanding the concepts of these ‘unknown’ cars on the track last winter.
The F1-75 got off to a strong start but failed to keep up with the RB18 for various reasons, however it is no mystery that even under the management of Mattia Binotto, the Ferrari 675 (more than the 674 2022) was considered the car to really aim for the title. Without making risky comparisons, it is as if we were going back to the two-year period 2017-2018. Currently, as reported by formu1a.uno, Fred Vasseur has started his Maranello activity ‘on tiptoe’. There seems to be no air of revolution, at least immediate, rather a certain sense of continuity. Something that at the factory seems to have been very popular after some initial fears. After all, it seems not only the most correct but also the most intelligent approach and the French manager has repeatedly shown important adaptability.
Taking responsibility for making a very heavy ship such as Ferrari turn sharply can often be counterproductive, nevertheless we will see some changes, which have already been in place for some time.
Ferrari 675: in the simulator it is at least one second faster than the F1-75!
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In this phase, while Ferrari continues with the production of the car parts and its assembly, there is an intense Simulation work that is carried out with the drivers, and which comes from afar. The 674 car was designed based on the correlation but, as is known, it had some weaknesses to correct, not to mention the lack of reliability of the power unit in the central part of the season which affected the performance of the second half.
As far as formu1a.uno has learned, the numbers coming out of the simulator are very positive if we consider that well-qualified sources talk about a new car that is over a second faster than the Ferrari F1-75. An interesting estimate considering that the 2023 regulation brings about significant variations in terms of use of the overall aerodynamic load.
If in 2022, over 2/3 of the load came from the ground effect, next season’s cars had to lose some of it in the fast corners, again due to the regulations changes designed to eliminate aerodynamic bouncing. “The regulation changes will cause a loss of 15 to 20 points of downforce, about half a second in terms of time.” anticipated Nikolas Tombazis, who has just been promoted to single-seater director by the Federation. A liability that will already be almost eliminated by the aeromechanical development of the single-seaters, which is very important as it is the first winter of development by the teams.
To this must be added the important steps forward that the cars will make in the medium and above all slow sections to be associated both with development in the tunnel and with softer set-ups on which the teams will initially work to understand whether the behavior of the new tyres, that they are testing and analyzing at the various simulators, will also occur on the track. And, last but not least, by an important reduction in exposure to porpoising which – according to some engineers – slowed the 2022 cars down to 7 tenths at the start of last season. It is therefore no coincidence that manufacturers of brake systems expect an increase in braking torque of close to 5%. This is because the cars will come out of the corners faster and will therefore be able to get to the next one with greater speed.
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