Ferrari on track at Fiorano for tests with spray guards before filming day – VIDEO. Scuderia Ferrari is testing the new spray guards for the FIA.

Scuderia Ferrari is testing the new spray guards for the FIA. The first day of testing at the Fiorano circuit started on Thursday morning with Ferrari juniors Arthur Leclerc and Oliver Bearman taking part in this special day of track activities. Charles Leclerc’s brother hit the track behind the wheel of the SF-75 car equipped with spray guards and the British driver in the SF-24 with the livery that raced last weekend in the Miami Grand Prix.

The home track of the Prancing Horse was artificially wet, and the Ferrari driven by Arthur Leclerc, equipped with wheel fairings, positioned itself in front of the red car driven by Ollie Bearman in order to evaluate the degree of visibility achievable when rain requires the use of the Pirelli full wet tire (the blue compound) with a very substantial water flow, creating visibility issues more than grip issues for the cars on the track.

Last year at the Silverstone circuit, experiments were conducted with less invasive solutions on Formula 1 cars, but these had yielded poor results and were therefore dismissed. At the Fiorano track, however, we see a very different and much more invasive concept: both the front and rear wheels have been covered by a carbon fiber disk that entirely encloses the tire.

From the front view, “windows” that had been opened were observed and throughout the day will be progressively dilated or closed to evaluate the tire’s behavior, water displacement, and the spray’s impact on the following driver.

The feeling is that this is an “extreme” experiment that covers the tires completely, but observing these truly unsightly disks closely, you can also discern possible lateral doors that can be removed, indicating that the design is not final, but the system allows precise evaluation of the threshold at which visibility begins to be lost.

The work, therefore, managed in collaboration between the FIA, Ferrari, and Pirelli, involves a plan with several runs. And it is expected that at some point one of the two main drivers will take action: Carlos Sainz will evaluate the innovations since he has been the only one, compared to the two reserve drivers of the Prancing Horse, to have experience in heavy rain.

Tomorrow, however, Ferrari will dedicate the entire day to the second filming day: in addition to making commercial shoots to satisfy the title sponsor, HP, the Italian side will be able to make a preliminary evaluation of the aerodynamic update package that will be mounted on the SF-24 (which will return to being only red) in view of the debut at the Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. In the 200 kilometer run allowed by the FIA, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will divide the work to find the right correlation of data between the track and the information collected by the Maranello technicians from the wind tunnel and simulation tools.

Arthur is actually on track with the F1-75 and also Ollie with the SF-24 !

(📸 Racedayf1_official) pic.twitter.com/wLbDBcruW1

— ALeclerc14_fan 🇲🇨 (@ALeclerc14_Fan) May 9, 2024