Analysis of Ferrari’s SF90 deficit, limitations and potential. Analysis of Ferrari's SF90 deficit, limitations and potential.

Ferrari has suffered its third consecutive defeat in China. The SF90 is and will always be a wonder bag between good, bad and mediocrity. In Shanghai the “good car” was not as good as expected. Leading German automobile magazine Auto motor und sport explain why:

The conclusion after three Grands Prix must be bitter for Ferrari. World Championship opponent Mercedes started the season with three double victories and already has a 57-point lead. Ferrari, on the other hand, fluctuates between good, bad and mediocrity. “Melbourne was a runaway. The tests in Barcelona, Bahrain and China were only a few tenths down and up,” team boss Mattia Binotto defended the team against the accusation that the Ferrari was a miracle bag.

The rashes are a bit stronger after all. In Bahrain Ferrari would have won clearly. In China Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc had no chance against the Mercedes. The gap in the race was 0.244 seconds on the lap. This confirmed the picture that was already clear in the qualifying session on Saturday.

The weekend had started well for Ferrari. In Friday training the red cars looked like possible winners. Again, an impression that we already had in Bahrain was consolidated. Ferrari destroyed the Mercedes on the straight and sneaked through the slow corners. The whole lead of 0.7 seconds from the full throttle passages was lost again in corners 2, 3, 6, 9, 11 and 14.

On Saturday Mercedes turned the tie into a lead. The silver arrows halved the gap on the straights, but defended their advantage in the slow corners. The bottom line was a lead in the lap time. Why Ferrari’s dominance on the straights was halved overnight is one of the many puzzles this car poses to us. Sure, Mercedes turned on the engine in Q3. At the moment this is only possible twice a weekend, because you still have cooling problems. But Ferrari can normally counter that. Bahrain showed it. The recourse to the rear wing for more downforce could not have been it either. The higher drag of the Saturday wing is not three and a half tenths. Not even the headwind that hit Sebastian Vettel harder than the two Mercedes drivers in his qualifying lap.

Vettel’s enigmatic radio message
At Mercedes it is assumed that Ferrari has to do without power from time to time for reasons of stability. That’s how it was in Melbourne. This could have been the case in Shanghai. In the second practice on Friday Charles Leclerc had to quit early because there was a problem with the intercooler. It pinches at all corners and ends under the super slim rear fairing. There was too much cooling, there too little, then again a short circuit in a control unit or power loss as during the test drives in Barcelona.

In this context the radio message from Vettel directly after the Q3 to his race engineer Riccardo Adami caused a lot of guesswork: “We had it, we had it. We know why, though. The car was tricky, but there was a bit more. But we know why, grazie.” Many suspected that Vettel was addressing a technical problem that might have slowed him down. Despite an unfortunate start to the season, Binotto, Vettel and Leclerc demonstrate a strange calmness, apart from the debates about the stable direction.

It’s also funny that Ferrari let the SF90 car race in all three races almost unchanged. While Mercedes did one or the other upgrade, the World Championship opponent has not even entered the development race yet. Almost as if you didn’t need it. Or as if one knew that the Ferrari is a rocket if all parameters are in the green range.

Ferrari doesn’t hit the window
This was also be Vettel’s view on Sunday after the Chinese GP: “We have a good car, but we’re not able to put it in the window yet to make it work good. We’re not where we’ve been during the tests yet.” Vettel also didn’t seem to worry much about the third one-two victory of his WRC rival: “We didn’t have the speed of the Mercedes in China. But that’s not what shocks us. We just have to put our puzzle pieces together optimally.”

The four-time World Champion expressly praises the “very strong engine”, but calls the chassis people to account: “We have to get the car into the window like Charles did in Bahrain. Mercedes seems to hit this window at the moment always and everywhere.” Shanghai, on the other hand, has again pointed out the weak points of the package.

After three races on three different racetracks, Vettel said, he was now beginning to get a rough idea of what to work on. “We now understand better what we need to make full use of our potential. It’s important to find the way we have to go in the next races.”

Binotto puts it this way: “We have certain limitations, depending on the track”. One thing is certain: Ferrari has less downforce than Mercedes. Binotto reassures: “A rear wing like the one from Mercedes is in the works.” It will probably only make its debut in Barcelona because you’ll need a smaller wing for the next race in Baku. And it probably also requires a correction to the front wing so that the car can also be balanced. That couldn’t be so easy with Ferrari’s front wing concept.

Do the tyres heat up too much?
But it’s about more than just the rear wing. The loss of time in the slow corners is sometimes frightening. It can’t be due to the general contact pressure. In the fast corners Ferrari keeps up with Mercedes and Red Bull. Vettel suspects that the reason for the loss of grip in the narrower passages is tyre pressure or tyre temperature. The interaction of the new car with the new Pirelli rubbers is obviously not yet fully understood.

The observations of Mercedes engineers also point in this direction. “In Bahrain we couldn’t make up for the loss of time in the corners because Ferrari stood better in the corners. Maybe because the long straights gave the tyres enough time to cool down. In Melbourne and Shanghai, corner after corner follows, with the risk of the tyre overheating. If you then have more downforce like us, you are in a better position. If you add problems with the drive unit that force you to reduce power, you lose too much lap time”.

Mattia Binotto announced a reaction. The Maranello team has to work on the weaknesses that have kept Ferrari from winning so far. And Ferrari’s boss sets very clear priorities: “First comes the lap time, then the reliability”.