Joys and sorrows after just one week apart. Scuderia Ferrari went from the top step in the Monaco Grand Prix to the Canadian hell, where they suffered a heavy double zero points finish at the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. The weekend ended in the worst possible way for the Prancing Horse team, with the SF-24 single-seater struggling significantly due to the usual problem of generating grip at low temperatures. Team principal Frederic Vasseur pointed out that they had an engine issue with Charles Leclerc, losing up to 1.2 seconds per lap, while Carlos Sainz got caught in the pack, suffered front wing damage at the start, and experienced a significant loss of downforce after another incident. Overall, it was a difficult weekend for them.
As could be heard over the team radio, the problem faced by the Monegasque worsened during the race, starting with a half-second loss per lap that eventually became (on average) a loss of between eight-tenths and 1.2 seconds per lap, as revealed by Frederic Vasseur and Charles Leclerc immediately after the race. The Canadian debacle confirmed what had already been highlighted after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, namely that the package of updates brought for the Italian round was not closely related to mitigating the intrinsic issue of how the tires activate on the SF-24 car.
Italian aerodynamicist and Ferrari Technical director Enrico Cardile has decided to push development at Maranello: a new floor will arrive in the next round of the 2024 Formula 1 season, the Spanish Grand Prix, which will take place at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona and the Ferrari technicians also plan to introduce other small updated elements.
After implementing the first set of updates to make the SF-24 more “extreme” starting at the Imola circuit, Ferrari Technical Director of Chassis & Aerodynamics Enrico Cardile and his team of engineers quickly turned their attention to the next phase of development. Initially, the Maranello team’s strategy was to roll out the second major update package at Silverstone, with the goal of boosting overall downforce and improving the car’s aerodynamic balance to mitigate specific issues. However, according to the Italian website Formu1a.uno, Scuderia Ferrari is accelerating production to debut the key updates in Barcelona instead. The technical team had originally planned to wait six races before introducing significant upgrades, opting to thoroughly refine the first major redesign and bypass an intermediate development stage. Despite the disappointing performance in the Canadian Grand Prix at the Montreal circuit, the in at Maranello is working intensively with the clear goal of being able to return to the top and fight against Red Bull and McLaren for podium finishes.
But anticipating the new floor for the Spanish Grand Prix will be a race against time.
Imola marked the first significant step in revealing the “true” Ferrari 2024 F1 car, demonstrating that the winter efforts to revamp the “conceptually flawed” 2023 car were yielding results. A quarter of the development budget has been meticulously and strategically applied in order to push the aerodynamic package to its limits. Now, the challenge is to expedite the introduction of many new components originally slated for the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit, aiming to debut them in Barcelona. This will demand immense effort from the team’s production department. The updated floor is designed to boost downforce by roughly 10 points and enhance overall efficiency. The crucial factor for greenlighting the package’s shipment to Spain hinges on how many new floors Ferrari can manufacture. Producing three new units would enable both Leclerc and Sainz to benefit from the upgrade in Catalonia in two weeks. The upcoming week will be critical in this effort. Typically, it takes 7-8 weeks to produce a wind tunnel-approved model in three Grand Prix specifications, but the team is striving to accelerate this process.
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