Ferrari didn’t win in the 2024 Formula 1 championship but aims to do so next year as the long winter of F1 has just begun. With no track activity, the maximum effort is being put into finalizing technical projects by the teams for the upcoming season. The design phase began some time ago, but it is solidified when the starting point represents a consistent reference. For this reason, all teams, at least in their intentions, had planned a development plan with a shift towards the final phase of the recently concluded season.
The reason is simple: in 2025, there will be less time to address the shortcomings of a car defined according to the regulatory framework that will be obsolete after a few months. The last year of regulatory continuity, in fact, allows teams to analyze the weaknesses of the cars from the completed championship through the vast amount of data collected during race weekends. In relation to publicly available information, some aspects can still be highlighted. As for Ferrari, the SF-24 single-seater was certainly a huge step forward compared to the 2023 car.
The engineers and technicians at the Prancing Horse managed to give the car the ability to express its maximum potential within a wider operating window of the tires, which was the real Achilles’ heel of its predecessor. The price paid for this was a lower speed on a single lap, a behavior partially anticipated by the Maranello technicians, as the primary goal was not to overload the Pirelli tires with too much energy in a very short time. For this reason, the SF-23 car performed best in terms of qualifying pace but struggled over the full 300 kilometer distance.
In the analysis, we evaluated the performance of the red car based on the compounds chosen by the Italian tire supplier during F1 race weekends. As usual, the Italian manufacturer Pirelli, for each Grand Prix of the season, based on environmental factors, track surface abrasiveness, and track geometry, conducts a review that provides the most accurate indications for selecting three of the five compounds available to use when the reference plan is dry.
On tracks where high loads are generated on the tires, in fast corners, Pirelli has long chosen the harder compounds in the range, so the tires can withstand the energy values being transmitted. The result of the numerical analysis shows that the combination of the hardest compounds on tracks with fast corners is the area of improvement for project 677. In the past season, the C1, C2, and C3 compounds were selected for the following Grand Prix: Bahrain, Japan, Spain, England, Netherlands, and Qatar.
In none of these rounds did the cars of the Prancing Horse shine, although it must be emphasized that in the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, the aerodynamic update package debuted, which confused the Ferrari Racing Department for several weeks, and therefore the races in Barcelona at the Circuit de Catalunya and England at the Silverstone circuit were heavily influenced by the unpredictable behavior of the SF-24. However, even after the engineers from the historic Maranello-based team managed to get the car back on a virtuous development path, the performance in Zandvoort and Losail was still lackluster.
The reds, when using the harder compounds, averaged 10 points fewer than those using the central subset (C2, C3, and C4) and 5 points fewer compared to races where the softer dry compounds (C3, C4, and C5) were used. The Brazilian F1 race was obviously not considered in the analysis, as it was held under torrential rain conditions. Additionally, it should always be kept in mind that many other factors can affect the accuracy of the data. For example, we recall the disastrous qualifying performance of the reds in Singapore.
It was the prelude to a weekend, the Asian one, where much less was gained in terms of points than could have been. However, the final outcome is not a coincidence, and therefore its value certainly holds weight. The goal for the men of Maranello in view of the 2025 Formula 1 championship is certainly to increase the versatility of the car across the entire range of products made by Pirelli, along with improved performance in long, high-speed corners.
As if that were not enough, it seems that starting next year, the new Super Soft C6 compound will be introduced, and its inclusion among the available options could redefine the characteristics of the entire dry product range made by the Italian supplier. An additional headache for the Ferrari team designers, who, after several years of endless struggles, managed, through a deep understanding of the tires, to create one of the most interesting Formula 1 seasons of the last decade.
Leave a Reply