F1, SF-24: Ferrari faces several problems not linked just to bouncing and suspension

Ferrari takes a podium finish with Carlos Sainz in the eleventh round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Austrian Grand Prix. The historic F1 team finds itself with an unexpected third place at the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, thanks to the close encounter between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, an incident that is sure to spark controversy. However, Ferrari’s joy is only partial, as everything that could go wrong did for Charles Leclerc on the other side of the garage. A weekend to forget for the Monegasque driver, unfortunately. Mercedes wins with George Russell, whose overall pace was not that different from Carlos Sainz’s. McLaren, a truly great British team, finishes second.

Ferrari is struggling to make the car work well. We are talking about the SF-24 single-seater, which seems to have lost its way with the new aerodynamic package installed at the Circuit de Catalunya in the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. There’s talk of porpoising, especially from Carlos Sainz. This aerodynamic bouncing is triggered by the new floor and prevents the car from maintaining the predetermined ride heights. As a result, the car is raised to avoid it, which means the generated downforce is insufficient. If we accept this reasoning, it must also be noted that the rear downforce tends to be lighter.

The reason is well-known: the need to mitigate insufficient aerodynamic efficiency “imposes” a lighter rear. This lighter, more unstable rear contrasts with the extreme solidity of the front end. While downforce is very important, the balance of vertical push is even more critical. When the downforce is not proportionate between the two ends of the car, handling becomes complicated, and in Ferrari’s case, it results in oversteer. Excessive rotation in the middle of the curve causes instability and delays the throttle opening.

As mentioned, this aerodynamic bouncing creates load instability in high-speed corners. Between turn 2 and turn 3, the Ferrari cars showed driving instability. Observing the onboard footage in the qualifying session, it was clear that the generated load was insufficient to ensure stability at mid-corner speeds. However, this problem was not confined to these types of curves. In the first sector, particularly in curves 1 and 3, the lack of mechanical grip was significant, heavily affecting performance.

The helmsman of this ship navigating stormy waters is Frederic Vasseur. The Frenchman tried to rally the Maranello team over the Spielberg weekend. He acknowledges the problems but doesn’t speak about them clearly. He prefers to discuss the results and the commendable effort of the work group. It was a bittersweet weekend in Austria, at least according to Fred Vasseur. The only positive aspect comes from Carlos Sainz’s podium, which, without the close encounter between the frontrunners, would not have logically happened for Ferrari number 55.

The negative aspect concerns the incident involving Charles Leclerc at the braking point of the corner where he found himself sandwiched between the McLaren MCL38 of Oscar Piastri and the Red Bull RB20 of Sergio Perez. But the real problem concerns the start of the weekend when Ferrari hit the Spielberg track, and its setup was far from optimal. The simulator indicates one thing, but the track does not confirm it. A car showing little grip and an insufficient level of downforce. Sixty minutes to figure something out was not enough because the Sprint Race format undoubtedly did not support Ferrari in gathering know-how.

Fred Vasseur maintains that the most awarded F1 team in history made significant progress over the weekend. We can add that the problems seen on Friday frankly persisted until Sunday, because even in the race yesterday, tire management was not optimal, and overall handling was far from the very precise level observed in the pre-Spain races. The push continues, therefore, because the current goal remains the same: to return to fighting against Red Bull and McLaren for the race victory. This is what the French manager claims, and he does so with some confidence in front of the microphones.

Through our usual weekend analyses, we have meticulously detailed the behavior of the Ferrari SF-24 car, listing a series of problems that seem to go well beyond the porpoising issue. As always, it should be said that validating updates takes time, and technical adjustments are not necessarily needed to make them work properly. Frederic Vasseur insists that there will be no turning back because, in this regard, the path taken is the right one. There is much ambition translating into the development of what currently represents the technical framework of the car.

No steps back because better can and will be done. The latest update package has provided aerodynamic advantages, and Ferrari wants to restart from this point. In this sense, the Silverstone circuit could help. Indeed, the head of sports management reminds us that there will be three practice sessions available in England, which will help enhance the process of knowledge and experience with the car for its correct use. Lastly, a consideration: in Spain, to make a clear example, with the old floor in the first free practice session, Charles Leclerc’s car was off track in every way.

It was therefore much worse than Carlos Sainz’s SF-24, which instead had the new floor specification mounted on the car. For this reason, the Monegasque’s car was turned inside out during the first practice. While awaiting further details, we limit ourselves to highlighting a fact: the problems are diverse and, as far as we are concerned, are not solely linked to the porpoising issue or the alleged suspension that would not be able to handle the bouncing with more load. But this is up to the Ferrari technicians to identify and fix.

Source: FUnoanalisitecnica