After the disappointing outcome of the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola circuit, Scuderia Ferrari are working hard to have an evolution of their rear wing ready for the next round of the Formula 1 season, the Miami Grand Prix, which the Maranello team hopes will allow them to reduce the straight-line speed deficit to title-rival Red Bull.
The Austrian team, powered by the Honda engine, has definitely improved since the first race of the 2022 championship and at this stage seems to have the best power unit: during the three days at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the Italian side was an average of 3.65kph slower than Red Bull in the speed trap, that has raised a red flag. This data has reduced massively from the near 20kmh deficit they experienced in Jeddah, which is indicative of two key aspects.
First of all, the Ferrari F1-75 has a car setup that is one of the most flexible and versatile on the grid: this allows the Maranello engineers to find a balance between downforce and straight-line speed while also remaining close to its rivals. The second aspect is that Ferrari seems to have more power available to use once they also sort the reliability factors.
Unfortunately, for now it seems that the Milton Keynes side can rely on the overall more powerful combination of chassis and power unit, which means Ferrari has a lot of work to do as to not lose more ground and team principal Mattia Binotto is aware of this: “Because that’s where we lose something in performance and we need to keep working on it,” he admitted.
But more speed can also be gained by improving another key aspect, mainly the rear wing of the car, which will have a small update as Formula 1 heads to the United States for the first-ever visit to Miami next weekend. This move should increase their proficiency on the straights and flat-out sections, as explained in a recent report by Italian daily newspaper Corriere della sera.
While Scuderia Ferrari’s F1-75 si basically the same car we saw in the Bahrain pre-season testing session, Red Bull introduced a big an upgrade for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix which apparently made their car lighter by 5kg. This has brought their car at the same level of Ferrari (about 808kg), which is still 10kg over the limit under the new technical rules for the current Formula 1 season.
As a result of the upgrade for Imola, the four-time constructors’ champions have gained over two tenths of a second in lap time. Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto is very well aware that the development fight will have a significant importance for the title duel with Red Bull:
“Certainly they are strong and we know that they are developing the cars,” he said in an interview for Sky Sports after the race in Bologna, as Ferrari arrived in Italy witth high hopes, but eventually had to settle just for a sixth place finish for Charles Leclerc, as Carlos Sainz crashed out on lap 1 after being hit by Daniel Ricciardo.
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“Two weeks ago we were in Australia, we though we’ve got the best car. Today is the opposite, I think it will be a race-by-race [championship], the balance may change a bit but again here we have a good package overall, we are second in quali, in the wet conditions and in the dry I think we had a good sprint race. So overall I think again we can keep the smile. We know that developing will be a key element of the season, no doubt. We know that Red Bull will be very strong, they are coming back but again we will review the race of today and move forward.” – he explained.
Ferrari are now expected to hit back in Miami after Red Bull secured their first one-two finish in the last six years, with Max Verstappen leading home Sergio Perez, which means that Red Bull is now just 11 points behind Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship.
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