Formula 1 has finally returned to the track yesterday, with the first eight hours of testing already establishing (if there was ever any need) the superiority of Max Verstappen and the RB20 single-seater. However, Scuderia Ferrari did reasonably well with the SF-24 car, judging from the first long runs carried out by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, seeming to suffer much less from tire degradation compared to last year.
However, according to Anthony Davidson, the Maranello team appears not to have completely solved the bouncing problems on the SF24 that afflicted the 2023 single-seater, although the phenomenon is much less pronounced this year.
“Compared to the Red Bull, the car bounces,” said the Mercedes development driver during the F1 TV live broadcast. “It’s something that Ferrari has never been able to completely eliminate from a car.” – he pointed out.
“You can see it, the front moving up and down, the inconsistencies in the variation of the ride height that reappear when going over the bumps of turn 1. It seems they haven’t yet figured out what to do. It seems they haven’t yet solved this problem, which in my opinion is a bit of the weak point of Ferrari’s design philosophy.” – added the British former racing driver, currently working as an analyst for the Sky Sports F1.
Nonetheless, the SF-24 appeared to be a well-balanced and much less nervous car compared to what showed up twelve months ago, with Ferrari having the duty to aim at least to be the second force at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain: “I know they finished behind Mercedes at the end of the championship, but they are the ones who won a race excluding Red Bull,” continued Anthony Davidson.
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“I think they’ve always had a pretty decent car here. In qualifying, the car seems quite good to drive, maybe a bit too harsh with the tires still in race setup. I think all the other teams need to catch up from last season. It was really a good day for the team, because we completed the program as we expected,” Carlos Sainz commented at the end of the first day of pre-season testing – “We also did some long runs and started to play a bit with the car. We covered everything we wanted to do. It was a good first day. Now head down and let’s see how we can get even faster.”
Source: f1ingenerale
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