Ferrari mounts single-pillar rear wing on both SF-23 cars in Jeddah pitlane | 2023 Saudi Arabian GP. Ferrari mounts single-pillar rear wing on both SF-23 cars.

In Bahrain, both during the pre-season testing session and in the race weekend, Ferrari’s new rear wing caused a lot of discussion, despite the fact that the component was not used for the rest of the weekend. Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari SF-23 had in fact been equipped with a single-pillar rear wing on the last day of testing, after some delivery delays, and was also seen on the Ferrari car in the start of the first free practice sessions for the Bahrain Grand Prix. However with rather disappointing and unexpected results.

In the pre-season testing session, the DRS activation system broke, causing an uneven opening of the mobile wing and therefore forcing the technicians to replace. Then, during the first free practice session the wing support broke and for this reason the rear wing started to move unsteadily from side to side: “The new wing has a concept that is quite new to us. It is a development that is ongoing and that can take us one step further.” English senior performance engineer Jock Clear explained in Bahrain two weeks ago.

“What little we’ve seen so far is still positive, so we’ll probably bring it again,” Jock Clear added.

The new wing is in fact in Saudi Arabia and is currently fitted to both Ferrari SF-23 cars, as confirmed by F1 experts Piergiuseppe Donadoni and Paolo D’Alessandro based on the images taken from the Jeddah pitlane. “We did our tests in the factory but then all the stress should reflect the real conditions encountered by the component on the track. That’s why we wanted to test it on the track, without the aim of using it in the race. Nowadays you have very little time for testing so we have to use Fridays to test some parts. We will go back to the factory and improve it further.” explained the English engineer.

Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection! Click here to enter the F1 online Store and shop securely! And also get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!

We recall that the single-pillar rear wing is a slightly more loaded version of the one used in Bahrain, with a more pronounced spoon. A solution therefore that aims to provide the rear of the SF-23 with more downforce, however, without penalizing the work of efficiency carried out during the winter to significantly increase the maximum speeds compared to the F1-75 car.