Ferrari is suffering. The results seen in Bahrain prove it. We have tried to explain the reasons through a text that tells the difficulties of the SF-23 car, which were too many and partly unexpected for the Maranello team to be able to aspire at a top position. The technical regulation introduced in 2022 makes it possible to supply customer teams (competitors) not only with power units, but with a set of components whose design, manufacturing and intellectual property is made/owned by the supplier itself.
This is the definition of “Transferable Components” (TRC) through which teams with less infrastructure and economic possibilities are able to compete without having to make huge investments to make many of the car’s components in-house.
Last year this business model allowed the Haas team to achieve a high level of competitiveness thanks to the synergy with Ferrari. If the extensive use of TRCs could have seemed like an excellent strategy for transferring the technologies developed by the top team to other sides with limited capabilities, Aston Martin’s leap in performance could represent a boomerang for the supplier.
The excellent technical base of the AMR23 together with the TRC supplied by Mercedes have allowed the team to be more competitive, for the moment, compared to the Mercedes single-seater. An embarrassing situation for the German side in some ways, but one that Toto Wolff himself didn’t want to deny in his assessments.
Absurdly, Aston Martin’s strength has provided two certainties to the German team: the quality of the supplies is excellent in terms of reliability/performance and that, essentially, the W14 is a very difficult project to make work. This accuracy is also provided by the use of the same wind tunnel. From a certain point of view, the feedback provided by the Silverstone team can partially reassure Mercedes.
The same components through a different aerodynamic look work perfectly in fact, to the point that in this start of the world championship, thanks to Ferrari’s technical indecisions, Aston Martin must necessarily be considered the second force in the championship. A diametrically opposite situation with regard to the Prancing Horse, as explained by funoanalisitecnica.com.
Ferrari 2023: benchmark customer team
Aston Martin is to Mercedes what Haas is to Ferrari in terms of technology partnership. Unlike last year, the United States team did not live up to expectations. The excellent Q3 secured by Nico Hulkenberg was just an illusion. In the Bahrain Grand Prix, both the German driver and Kevin Magnussen produced a disastrous race pace that relegated them to thirteenth and fifteenth place under the checkered flag.
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Worse than the team led by Gunther Steiner were only Alpha Tauri and the dispersed McLaren. A worrying sign for the stars and stripes team but also for its supplier. The all in all discreet performance of Alfa Romeo with Valtteri Bottas confirms that the Ferrari power unit is competitive, as Sauber is limited to using only the Prancing Horse engine.
In this sense, the behavior of the VF-23 in the next rounds of the season will be the subject of careful evaluation by the men from Maranello. Net of the more audacious aerodynamic philosophy of the SF-23, almost all of the parts in common with the two single-seaters and the difficulties in managing the tires could speed up the debugging of the current problems of the Ferrari car.
Scrolling through the list of “Transferable Components”, assuming that Haas uses a large part of the components designed and manufactured in GES, the use of the same front/rear suspension scheme does not go unnoticed, in terms of geometry of the external and internal elements. In the technical analysis of Red Bull suspensions, a focus made yesterday to put the technical point on the solutions adopted for the RB19, we can easily understand how much a job well done can contribute to “tyre management”. Virtually no degradation on both the Soft compound and the harder compound.
In all likelihood, Red Bull has designed a suspension system that maximizes the dynamic control of the tyres. In the next world championship event in Jeddah, on paper a less difficult circuit for the SF-23, it will be useful to observe the behavior of Haas to understand if the performance of the VF-23 will once again be aligned, with due proportions, to that of Ferrari.
