Scuderia Ferrari has decided not to bring the new floor tested in Australia in the first free practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which takes place this weekend at the Imola circuit. Or better said, this seems to be the direction the Maranello team thinks of taking because the indications that emerged from the simulator advised the Maranello technicians to continue with an F1-75 car that has impressed in the first three races of the 2022 Formula 1 season, scoring two wins and a second place with Charles Leclerc who leads the drivers ‘championship, while the Scuderia is firmly in the lead in the Constructors’ championship.
In the simulation department directed by Marco Adurno they prefer not to introduce new variables in a weekend that will offer only one hour of free practice before the qualifying scheduled already on Friday afternoon due to the Sprint Race format which runs this weekend in Imola, even if on the floor there will be some small interventions to limit the porpoising issue.
Ferrari has so far revealed a great adaptability to the tracks that have hosted races in 2022 (and in the list we must not forget Barcelona where the first winter tests took place), but at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari rain could become a key factor, at least for Friday, making it even a more difficult decision to bring this update in a long and complicated race weekend.
And it will be interesting to see which team will be able to immediately adapt the car to rain tyres or intermediates, taking into account that in the pre-season tests in Barcelona, the wet session organized by Pirelli with tank trucks was rather snubbed by the teams: only Ferrari and McLaren took to the track for a few laps on the wet track, while Albon (Williams), Hamilton (Mercedes), Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and Perez (Red Bull) had covered some laps with the intermediates looking for the cross-over with the slicks.
It should be added that in 2021 Ferrari had carried out two Pirelli test sessions with 18-inch wet tires with the mule car derived from the SF90: first at Jerez and then at Paul Ricard, while Alpine completed development work at Castellet, which helped Pirelli to design the current rain and intermediate tyres.
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The Maranello team, therefore, could take another small advantage from the planning work that had been done in view of the 2022 Formula 1 season, dedicating time and resources to planning a championship that has brought it back to the top of the grid. Mercedes, in fact, had given up its two days at Paul Ricard, motivating the choice with the constraints of the budget cap: the Brackley team, engaged in the world championship fight with Max Verstappen last season, had preferred to use its economic resources in 2021, while Ferrari took the opportunity to study the new Pirelli tyres.
The current weather forecast shows possible rain on Friday with a gradual improvement in the following two days.
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