Ferrari F1-75 vs Red Bull RB18: analyzing basic concepts, strengths and weaknesses. Ferrari F1-75 vs Red Bull RB18.

The best cars, the ones that presumably will compete for the 2022 Formula 1 world championship, are clearly the Ferrari F1-75 and the RedBull RB18. Each has scored two victories after the first four rounds of the season, with Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, in a balanced but at the same time fluctuating start for both.

Without the two retirements in Bahrain and Australia, Max Verstappen would be leading the championship with 95 points. Charles Leclerc drove perfectly and achieved the maximum possible, up to the mistake in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola which cost him 7 points. Without problems, between Charles and Max there would have been just two points, which shows how much the technicians fear small or big reliability problems and how close the current fight is, as we now head to the US for the Miami Grand Prix.

On the constructors front, both have lost a lot of points, in particular to Mercedes’ advantage. The W13 does not perform well however the team has had good weekends given the circumstances and has collected more points than it would have hoped for. Carlos Sainz is encountering some more problems in understanding the F1-75 car than Charles Leclerc and has paid the price in overall performance and inevitably with small episodes that make a big difference in the outcome of the weekend. The incident caused by Daniel Ricciardo at the start of the Imola race has certainly not helped him.

Ferrari and Red Bull got the basic projects right
Returning to the 2022 F1 cars, Ferrari and Red Bull have drawn a rather clear path. On average – alternating – they inflicted over 8 tenths per lap to the third force. It should be noted that from the third car to the back of the grid they are all much closer if you think that there are 10-12 cars withing 8 tenths.

This means that two teams have completely got the basic project right – not neglecting the difficult management of porpoising and each other’s distinct differences. Only the developments will tell us who will have the greatest potential as the projects still have a lot to discover and show.

Ferrari has been working on the 674 project for a long time, more than others, just like Haas. Christian Horner has repeatedly reiterated that the fight with Mercedes for last year’s F1 titles did not penalize the 2022 project. However, many say that this seems impossible, given the amount of updates fitted to the RB16B, in order to allow Max Verstappen to fight until the end against Lewis Hamilton. It should therefore be emphasized that Adrian Newey’s technical department really centered the problems quickly and solved them in the design phase, certainly making the right basic decisions, essentially where to risk and where to play it safe, remaining conservative. This was clear from the weight issue which latter arose.

In the end, the perfect car cannot exist, it is always a question of balance. And also to know how to give up some priorities for other advantages deemed more convenient. Both Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have some things in common, among which they don’t favor too much understeer. They prefer the rear to ‘move’ more. For example, this may have been one of the cornerstones on which to set some of the many guidelines. The fact is that after the weight loss treatment on the RB18, the two cars seem to work in a window of use that is not so different, as for example one could see between a Haas car that is fast on the straights and an Alfa Romeo car which is excellent in the slow sections.

Ferrari has more efficiency than it might seem from the outside
Ferrari amazed everybody with the design of the sidepods called ‘goldfish tanks’, with important dimensions between the front and rear axles, but all allocated as low as possible. The main function is to cut the stagnant flow from the car body and transport it as cleanly and quickly as possible to the rear. The more the flow is conveyed without dispersion or turbulence disturbance – the faster it will stay and the greater load it will generate even at low speeds.

The nose and wings are quite efficient and with wide incidence (therefore load) adjustments, while maintaining the same configuration. It is something on which the Maranello technicians worked hard to be able to produce “a few less wings” to save on the budget cap.

From the point of view of aerodynamic efficiency, the F1-75 is an efficient car in itself, much more than one might think from the outside. However, not as much as the RB18. The latter showed right from the start that it took less time to reach high speeds on the long straights, while losing a lot to Ferrari when exiting the corners but recovering very quickly as the meters went by. A crucial role in the design phase was played by the flow conveyors at the floor entrance, as explained by Giuliano Duchessa and Piergiuseppe Donadoni for formu1a.uno.

What was the main objective of the respective interpretations? On the Ferrari we see a rather coherent scheme at first sight compared to the prototype cars at the beginning of the work, but this should not deceive because Ferrari also works the flow with the initial part of the bellies. In short, it is the pairing of bellies-conveyors, as a whole, that produces a macro outwash effect to move the flows externally. This was very much useful to protect the rear tires and more generally the floor from the turbulence caused by the wake of the front ones.

The weak point of the car from Maranello seems to be that slightly too much drag – to be compensated by the power of the power unit – and the porpoising that does not allow the two drivers to force too much into the corners. In this sense, the updated floor promised by David Sanchez and the new rear suspension suitably evolved and stiffened are highly anticipated.

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Red Bull, not being able to work the trail of the front with the sidepods, has advanced the outermost conveyors
The RB18 went almost the opposite way, starting with a low drag body with less efficient wings. It has built what it does best, which is a very efficient aerodynamic chassis, nose and sidepod design. Newey took a few more risks by deciding to have a very aggressive front suspension designed, much more than Ferrari, to push the car on the tires in the manner deemed most correct. Something that worked well right away, even in terms of understanding for the drivers.

The car body has maintained a rather accentuated undercut, especially very efficient as speeds increase, hence the need to have the two outermost conveyors, positioned “further forward to work the trail of the front ones”, reproducing in a small part what we saw the old bargeboards do. But that’s not all: on the RB18, the conveyors also help to favor the flow of the flow above the floor, while in the lower part they do not try, if not in the final part, to accentuate the downwash of the flow which would allow a greater flow recall. in the central part. What Ferrari does instead, is more concentrated with the conveyors to expand the flow under the floor, while Red Bull has opted for ‘less’ aggressive conveyors but with a more pronounced tunnel height than the F1-75.

The problem for the RB18 could have been maintaining great stability when cornering and braking. This objective was also successful thanks to the excellent work carried out on the suspensions. The weak point of this great car is in the first phase out of corners and – under certain temperature or tire conditions – in insertion, areas where the technicians can develop it and find further performance.

Even Red Bull (Honda) can, if it wishes, bring the upgrade to the electric part of its PU
Ferrari has recovered an impressive amount of power compared to the losses due to E10 fuel. It seems that the engineers have spent 2/3 of the hours they could have devoted to producing a better engine in 2021 for the benefit of this new power unit. Evolving some concepts of the Power Unit in a completely extreme and uncompromising way. With risks related to reliability. However, it was clear that in 2022 having an engine that lived up to expectations was something essential for Ferrari. Both for an ‘external’ issue, after what happened in the pre-season 2020 winter and to be able to make the most of the aerodynamic concept of the F1-75.

However, the work is not finished thinking about the evolution of the hybrid. From the reported data, the F1-75 – taking into account the slight disadvantage in terms of efficiency – seems to have the best engine. Certainly at the highest level regarding driveability as confirmed by Valtteri Bottas at Imola.

That said, we cannot say that the Honda PU is significantly inferior. The technicians kept their promise to push to the last race of 2021 as they did everything possible to win the world championship. Switching to fuel with 10% maximum ethanol was not painless, but certainly well managed.

What developments there may be in this sense remains to be seen, given that some 2022 concepts and new technologies were anticipated by the Japanese brand last season, such as the one concerning the battery (Belgium 2021). Even if, like Ferrari, the Japanese engine manufacturer could still count on the evolution of its hybrid part coupled to the thermal part, already frozen, of the current engine.