F1, Ferrari: the nose of F1-75 has the option of becoming shorter. The nose of F1-75 has the option of becoming shorter.

The Ferrari F1-75 is certainly the car that draws the most attention in this second round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, after the positive debut in Bahrain with a victory that had been missing for 903 days. The show of strength of the entire package of the Italian team, in terms of pure speed, tire management and reliability, allowed Scuderia Ferrari to secure not only the victory, but also the first one-two of the season. The last one was in Singapore, in the now very distant 2019 championship.

As reported by formu1a.uno, Mercedes is suffering from major porpoising issues, which do not allow it to use more slack rear wings like those seen on the Ferrari F1-75 and Red Bull RB18. This depends on the fact that the floor of the W13 is still rather inefficient, so the downforce need to be found through the wings. Mercedes also showed up like this in Saudi Arabia, with a rather loaded rear wing and rather similar to the previous one when, on the other hand, other teams, including Red Bull, Alpine and Alpha Tauri, brought real specifications from lower load. To impact less on the budget limits available, both economic and development, Mercedes has brought the same wing specification, in terms of mainplane and endplate, adapting only the part of the mobile wing, in two different specifications.

Something similar could be done by Ferrari, albeit in another part of its car, namely the front. As the illustration of formu1a.uno and Rosario Giuliana shows, the initial part of the nose of the F1-75 features a cover that wraps around the actual nose, that is, the carbon part necessary to successfully pass the mandatory crash test imposed by the Federation. The ‘anteater’ shape of the nose was created by working precisely on the aerodynamic cover that allows the nose to rest on the first element of the front wing. Nothing will prohibit Ferrari, by modifying the cover and not necessarily the entire front wing, from shortening the nose and making it become much more similar to that of Alfa Romeo, therefore with a complete blowing between the first and the second element of the wing. The space created between the final part of the impact structure and that of the aerodynamic cover is used by the Italian team to insert the ballast.