Despite the fact that Scuderia Ferrari decided to go for many unconventional choices with the development of the F1-75 car this season, but at the same time the Maranello team has the flexibility to adopt other team’s solutions if they turn out to be more efficient, as confirmed by Team Principal Mattia Binotto.
The new Ferrari challenger has a unique take on the sidepod design according to the new rules and technical regulations, while at the same time taking an interesting direction regarding the shape of its front wing structure and design. For now it is clear that Ferrari has interpereted the overhauled aerodynamic rules in a different way as compared it its main rivals, without forgetting that teams still hide many of the aero updates for this year.
Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto pointed out that the F1-75 has many “non-conventional choices in terms of aero shapes” and while he is confident his personnel have made the correct choices, he says there is scope to adopt other concepts if necessary. Each single team has got flexibility in terms of design,” said Mattia Binotto – “And what we will do certainly at the start of the season is look at the other cars, see the concepts they have decided and adopted and certainly we will test them on the windtunnel if there is any different direction to our one. If you look at the body shape we’ve got it’s quite wide, certainly we have not filled the underbody in the full space so we have got flexibility certainly in the middle of the car, on the bodywork. If you look at the regulations, it’s quite prescriptive on the front wing, on the nose, on the rear wing, but there is much flexibility around the bodywork. The way we have packaged our power unit, I think that will leave us some freedom in the future if we at least understand that there are other directions that can be promising.” – he explained.
Scuderia Ferrari, just like Mercedes, decided to present a true version of its new car for the 2022 Formula One season, while Red Bull choose to kpep its RB18 secret for now, launching with a show car. On the other hand, the Maranello team has released many images of its F1-75 and published photos and footage from its shakedown at Fiorano, which took place last Friday.
The Italian side is confident it has made the right decisions with this design, as Mattia Binotto has spoken a lot about the “open-minded” approach Ferrari took to the F1-75 car’s design and how “innovative” it is – having considered various solutions before settling on this package. It was not a matter of simply continuing the concept of the previous car and adapting them to the new rules,” added Mattia Binotto.
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“So, when reading the new regulations in the very start we try to have a completely open-minded approach, try to understand how we may have improved the aerodynamics and the overall performance of the car. Designing and developing the new car has been aerodynamically driven. So all the mechanical choices have been a consequence of it, as well the power unit packaging has been a consequence of an aerodynamic choice. So when we went to the windtunnel at the very start, we tried all the possible directions and then we picked the one we believed was the best for the final performance and then we designed and developed the car in such a way.” – he continued.
Scuderia Ferrari feels that only minimal updates are needed for the pre-season testing sessions in Barcelona and Bahrain, given the fact that the goal of the rule changes mean there will be a lot to learn before the F1-75 single-seater is at its full potential anyway.
There is much for the teams to correlate and understand about their new cars at the test, while the way the challengers will need to be set up and driven will also change.
“At the very start there will be a lot of laptime to be found in the way that we are learning and really exploiting the performance of the car and I’m expecting that it can take even a few races. I don’t think that we will get to the best potential of the car in a single test. So for us, we will start to consolidate and keep the package for the start to the season – the first and second test. We may have a few developments but not huge because I think at the very start it will be a matter of mapping, understanding, learning and finally exploiting the potential of the car.” – the Ferrari boss concluded.
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