The Ferrari SF-24 car in the first three races of the 2024 Formula 1 championship has scored three podium finishes and one victory. Thanks to the retirement of Max Verstappen in the Australian Grand Prix due to brake disk problems, Charles Leclerc is 4 points behind the Dutchman, while Ferrari is four points behind Red Bull, something that might bring a smile to Ferrari fans if seen from a different perspective. On one side, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Melbourne Grand Prix haven’t been the easiest races the Monegasque can remember, on the other hand, converting many points can convey optimism that the new Ferrari car demonstrates it can improve rapidly in terms of development, at least as much as the Red Bull RB20.
At the 5.278-kilometre Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne last Sunday, Carlos Sainz at was superior, considering the level of fitness, after a week in bed. The Spanish driver clinched his third victory for the Maranello team and if he had raced in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah circuit, he would certainly have earned at least 12 points, even surpassing Max Verstappen at the top of the 2024 Formula 1 championship. It’s just an initial picture, of course, yet it’s something unimaginable in retrospect.
Red Bull has shown a sign of vulnerability not seen in a long time, something that goes beyond the reliability issue with the car of the world champion. The Red Bull RB20 cars couldn’t have perfect setups to prevent graining problems, putting them in a troublesome understeer inclination that the technicians were not able to solve during the Australian weekend. Everyone expects an immediate reaction from the Austrian side in the Japanese Grand Prix at the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka International Racing Course, to prove that Melbourne was just an isolated incident. Unfortunately it’s reasonable to expect such a scenario, considering it has been only a few months since the last edition of the Japanese Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen reacted after the failure in Singapore and destroyed the competition, inflicting a 20-second gap to Lando Norris and 40 to Scuderia Ferrari. No one believes in significant difficulties for the reigning champion car at the Suzuka circuit, it would be nothing short of surprising.
The new Ferrari SF-24 car, which we saw for the first time in the official car presentation back in February, has been described as conservative in terms of design, yet having very clean surfaces at the base of the 2024 Formula 1 project was precisely the main goal of the Maranello technicians. Unlike its predecessors, the 2024 Ferrari car gives drivers enough confidence to push without fear of losing the car. Scuderia Ferrari has shown a curious technical characteristic, it’s a car that produces a level of downforce that is not very sensitive to the wing specifications provided. At the Jeddah circuit, a low-downforce wing wasn’t used because it was considered potentially too light, a conservative choice but the SF-24 was not significantly affected in terms of maximum speed. The evolved engine cover, even without the old bays, has remained slim since the F1-75. This directly helps overall efficiency and indirectly the beam wing, which can therefore produce more load at an acceptable price in terms of top speed. It’s something we’ve seen done on the RB18 and RB19, a bit less on the RB20 which introduced the famous Mercedes blowing cannons.
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The Ferrari SF-24 used only one specific rear wing to maneuver from medium-high to medium-low downforce. The direct competition, namely Red Bull, Mercedes, and McLaren, used two; someone like Racing Bull even three. The sequential layouts of Japan, China, Miami, Imola are all tracks with medium or medium-high downforce, which means it can be assumed that this configuration will be more or less maintained in the upcoming races, with some local adaptations, until the first Evo version of the SF-24 which was decided on Friday in a meeting with the entire team in Maranello and will be introduced at the Imola circuit in Ferrari’s home race in Italy.
Ferrari therefore defied expectations to claim their first race win of the 2024 Formula 1 season in Australia, a result that team principal Frederic Vasseur believes is evidence Red Bull can be challenged this year. Although the Frenchman still sees the RB20 as the benchmark, he is confident that the SF-24 will be a legitimate threat as the season progresses. Predicting Ferrari as a potential championship contender seems far too hasty at this stage. Instead, a more tentative assessment would put them as consistent podium finishers and semi-regular contenders for race victories. Meanwhile, the Maranello team, after the Easter break, prepares for the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit, where the Italian side will depart on Tuesday.
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