How good is the Ferrari SF21 worth? For the moment, the Scuderia has not looked for performance with the SF21, working hard on understanding the new car: Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are looking for set-up solutions, to find in this phase the best basis on which work will be done.
The Spaniard, fifth yesterday, was in third place in the morning making correlations between the medium tires (the yellow one built by Pirelli in Romania and the one without colored band made in Turkey). For now, Ferrari is very covered: the technicians are still discovering its potential. The SF21 wants to get back on top after the 2020 disaster with sixth place in the Constructors’ World Championship and the first indications regarding the 056/6 power unit are positive (also confirmed by the customer teams).
Attention is focused on reducing the car’s drag: at the rear, a great deal of work has been done to regain the downforce that was lost with the cutting of the floor.
Giorgio Piola’s image shows us very clearly the large channel that has opened under the differential which has been raised by 30 mm, less than other solutions that we have been able to observe for example on Red Bull and Mercedes with more inclined drive shafts.
But at Maranello they went in the right direction following the concepts of the top teams: the geometry of the rear pull rod suspension is new and the engineers are still looking for the right adjustment of the hydraulic control that last year made the rear end very unstable.
The floor of the SF21 is less “pushed” than Mercedes and Aston Martin: there are no “shells” of the W12, but in the middle of the floor three flow deviators appeared that were not there at the presentation.
There are three vortex generators in front of the rear wheel and there is also a vertical flap on the side of the tire: the Cavallino technicians have arranged a “carpet” of Pitot tubes to collect data on the behavior of the car by measuring the air speed in the various points in the Coca Cola area, while in the early morning under the rear axle the usual lights projected on the asphalt by the two laser readers useful for reading the instant height variations, just to discover and analyze what is the behavior of the car in passing from the set-up Rake beaten in corners to the flatter set up on the straight.
In the front of the SF21, good indications came from the nose with the narrower nose thanks to the new integration of the deformable structure (not modified) with the cape and the new support pillars of the front wing.
Regarding the chassisf, on the sides of the air vent of the S-duct, four flow deviators have appeared that generate a down wash effect to supply the air destined for the floor.
For now, Ferrari cannot yet be judged because it remains a laboratory …
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