In the central part of the Ferrari SF-23 car, although a new chassis for project 675 was homologated following the crash tests, 2/3 kg lighter than that of the F1-75 (the weight loss which is equivalent to 1 tenth per lap), the Maranello team did not want to copy the design of the Red Bull RB18. The lateral anti-intrusion cone has remained high because the Italian side did not want to look for an extreme undercut in the lower part of the sidepods. It is part of the aerodynamic concept on which Ferrari decided to focus last season, a design which Ferrari still strongly believes in, given the solid evolution that will be brought to the track with the SF-23 car.
The front part serves to move the flow externally to the rear wheels, thus trying to decrease the drag of the new car. However, the sidepod design has been completely revised, especially in the middle and rear. The profile is now much less straight/vertical and, above all, the lower part is now more excavated and converges towards the center of the car much sooner, freeing up a lot of space in the upper part of the underbody.
Thus, a greater air flow will tend to enter and then vent towards the top of the diffuser, contrary to the Red Bull concept, later taken up by Alpine, and from which all the teams are taking inspiration with the 2023 Formula 1 cars, where the air that slides over the sidepods feeds the diffuser. It is no coincidence that the upper part of the sidepods has remained very high, without the now well-known outwash effect, given that on the Ferrari cars it is used to power the rear wing and the beam wing.
It is not only the vortex generators on the front wing that are causing a lot of discussion but also some solutions present in the central part of the SF-23. We are talking about the innovative wing profile that detaches from the sides of the Halo, the safety device that saved the lives of Romain Grosjean in Bahrain and Zhou Guanyu last year at Silverstone. Even the cooling, as well as on Haas, has been repositioned with consequent changes in the openings for both the inlet and outlet of the cooling flow. Above all, the vertical air intake is interesting, positioned next to the chassis similarly to what was seen on the W13 zeropods. Important updates were also made to the Venturi tunnels, which have changed a lot, as well as the conveyors which have been revised for better consistency of the flow passing under the new Italian car.
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Ferrari SF-23: the problems with the power unit have been solved on the test bench, now we wait for the feedback from the track
Mattia Binotto, before leaving, wanted to point out to people very close to him that “the 2023 car will be very fast”. Therefore comments similar to those made by Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna, who defined the SF-23 as “a single-seater that will have no precedent in terms of speed”.
However, a lot will depend on engine performance and not repeating the many, too many technical failures seen on the track last season. On the test bench, the problems with the power unit have been fixed, according to the information gathered by formu1a.uno. But now there is a lot of curiosity to see how the car works on the track, because even last year with the reinforced power unit some problems should have been solved and instead others emerged. From this point of view, however, the new team principal, Fred Vasseur, spoke positively. “The regulation is quite clear. The engines are frozen but some work can be done to correct the reliability issues. Last year the window of use of our engine was very small, we will see how it is this year. However, I think we’ll be in good position.” – the French manager confirmed.
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