Scuderia Ferrari intends to maximize the competitiveness of the SF-24 car for the fourth round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship at the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka International Racing Course. The Japanese weekend is a tough one to prepare for. A very technical track that highlights the negative characteristics of a wing car. For this reason, over the last 10 days, the work on simulation within the Ferrari Racing Department has occupied much of the day. The historic Maranello team has prepared with great care and dedication for the upcoming round of the 2024 racing campaign, aware that the predominant factors in Japan that need to be properly managed will be multiple.
Red Bull remains the favorite, especially considering that according to information reported by the Italian and international media, the Milton Keynes team will arrive with several upgrades this weekend. Some are minor, like simple adaptations to the track, while others, such as the floor, are more important. The target in this case is to enhance the level of downforce produced by the car floor of the RB20. A “free” vertical push that does not increase drag. Not to mention McLaren, which will undoubtedly be a tough competitor given the characteristics of the Suzuka track, with the team led by Andrea Stella being eager to prove itself in the battle for the role of the second force against the Maranello team.
F1|Ferrari SF-24 at Suzuka: Minimizing Losses in Direction Changes
From a technical point of view, Scuderia Ferrari can find a fertile ground to work on here. The Suzuka track has sections that can adapt well to the characteristics of the SF-24. Precisely on this track, last year, the red car brought an update to the floor that managed to unlock some useful potential for the SF-23 car, providing some very important confirmations that helped identify the ideal path to the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship. The first section consists of the well-known “snake,” the sequence of fast corners. Aerodynamically, the red car seems to have high downforce and good stability.
We know that the developable downforce is a function of the ride height that “suffers” various changes during driving, with pitch, roll, and yaw angles that therefore vary. The red car should be very strong in long, banked curves like 1 and 7. Direction changes must be treated properly to avoid losing minimum speed once the Ferrari drivers start steering at high speeds. This weakness in direction changes is a concern that the Italian team is still working on, seen in this early stage of the championship, an aspect that fundamentally derives from a different front suspension kinematics.
For the rest, we can say that the front-end of the SF-24 car is excellent. Therefore, we expect that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz can build the lap precisely in the insertion phase towards the apex. From a setup perspective, the engineers of the Prancing Horse aim to minimize oversteer, a characteristic “desired” for handling that is not bothersome if contained and, on the contrary, if properly managed, improves rotation. From a mechanical point of view, the front anti-roll bars will be stiffened, with the aim of obtaining greater responsiveness at the front, a factor on which to be cautious because it can partly limit the mechanical balance of the rear.
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This is also the reason why we expect to see a certain degree of oversteer nonetheless, considering that the SF-24 single-seaters seem to be able to hit the optimal window of the car. On this track, the Maranello team wants to optimize some strategic points of the track, in order to limit losses in the sections where they will have to defend. We refer, for example, to the aforementioned curves 1 and 7, where maximum performance to gain advantage in the qualifying session will need to be optimized. These two corners will also be kept under control during the race, to try to manage the so-called “man management” towards the set of the four tires used in the various stints.
For this reason, we cannot rule out the hypothesis that the red car will present a slightly lower downforce level, which will be important to help recover some points of maximum speed that can be useful for overtaking and of course to reduce drag. Alternatively, on the contrary, one could aim to decrease lateral sliding speeds by increasing car load. On the red car, we will likely see the same specification of the rear wing seen in previous events, at the Bahrain International Circuit, in Jeddah and at the Albert Park circuit. The Maranello team is trying to optimize the usage window by using only this specification, which at the moment proves to be very versatile when combined with different versions of the beam wing.
The precise downforce level will be decided only on the track, considering that the two Italian Formula 1 cars will arrive at Suzuka with at least two specifications of downforce which will then be tested during the first free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix. Track conditions and uncertain weather could indeed condition the choice of this parameter, for which there is no optimal level and normally the most suitable solution is chosen around the preferred level. All this considering that a level of vertical thrust in corner 11 will favor traction towards the next high-speed section leading up to the final chicane of the Suzuka circuit.
Speaking of setup, Scuderia Ferrari has carefully considered the most efficient way to maximize the sections that precede the so-called “detection point” of the drag reduction system zones. In this way, during the race, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc will see an increase in terms of chances of using the mobile wing when chasing another car. The SF-24 car also has excellent tire activation capacity on both axes of the car, a very useful feature in the qualifying session especially if temperatures are not very high. In the previous qualifying sessions, the red car has almost always found the correct out-lap, with a hysteresis process appropriate to the energy profile of each track.
Source: Alessandro Arcari and Niccoló Arnerich for FUnoanalisitecnica
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