Scuderia Ferrari’s new single-seater SF90 version of the blood-red Prancing Horse race car was expected to be a strong challenger for Mercedes in the 2019 Formula One season, after it showed impressive performance due to its potent power plant which drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc made the most of in the two pre-season testing sessions.
Ferrari aspired to have a strong start and to arrive in the best form at the season’s first race session, the 2019 Australian Grand Prix. The SF90 proved, during the last four-day testing, to be superior to its rivals on the track, while Ferrari’s drivers; the four-time Formula One World Champion Vettel and his teammate Charles Leclerc of Monaco, had expressed how comfortable to drive the new car is and how easily they could get it to deliver optimum performance. Yet things went wrong when it mattered the most.
After the rounds of the 2019 Formula One season, Scuderia Ferrari did not manage to score a decent haul of points along with a victory over Mercedes, much to the disappointment of many Formula 1 fans. The Maranello team now needs to carefully evaluate its next move as the Italian side attempts to fight back and remain involved in the fight for the title.
According to AMuS, similar to Bahrain, Scuderia Ferrari were hugely faster on the straights and just about kept their own through the slow corners. In China Ferrari’s SF90 managed to gain 0.7 seconds from the full throttle straights, but the advantage was lost again in the corners. Indeed Friday suggested that the race would be a close one, yet on Saturday, Mercedes somehow halved the deficit on the straights, but defended their advantage in the slow corners. The result being a lead in the lap time. Why Ferrari’s dominance on the straights was halved overnight is a mystery, and certainly not one that can be explained easily by saying that Mercedes simply turned up their engine.
Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted that the Italian side are now focusing on the aerodynamic improvements, which of course is one of the key areas in racecar development: “We have, depending on the track, certain limitations. A rear wing like the one from Mercedes is in the works.” – the Ferrari boss hints at the next update coming. But by mentioning the rear wing, the Swiss-Italian engineer fully admits that the Ferrari package is lacking in overall downforce compared to the Mercedes, and most likely we will only see its debut in Barcelona given the fact that F1 teams require a smaller wing for the next race in Baku.
The critical part of a new higher downforce rear wing, AMuS points out, is that it also requires a correction to the front wing so that the car can also be balanced. And that couldn’t be so easy with Ferrari’s low downforce, outwash front wing concept. Only Alfa Romeo has a similar design. The Mercedes front wing concept not only directs air around the front wheels, but to also fire it over the top, meaning that their front wing naturally creates more front downforce. Ferrari’s purely outwash concept cannot generate downforce in the same manner. AMuS also believes that Ferrari’s underachievement is more than just the rear wing. The loss of time in the slow corners is sometimes shocking as the SF90’s lap time can disappear completely.
In the fast corners Ferrari keeps up with Mercedes and Red Bull. Sebastian Vettel suspects that the reason for the loss of grip in the tighter sections is tyre pressure or tyre temperature, as the interaction of the new car with the new Pirelli rubbers is obviously not yet fully understood.
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