Charles Leclerc loses control of his Ferrari in Turn 2, at the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit, on the first lap of the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. The Monegasque driver dives inside the corner to overtake Max Verstappen, who is struggling more with his racing on the outside. The move is correct, but the limited space forces the Ferrari driver to climb onto the curb in an extreme manner. His SF-25 bounces, loses grip, and a steering correction promptly follows in order to avoid losing control of the car.
A very strong counter-steer pushes the Italian car toward Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari. Contact is inevitable, and the one who suffers the most is number 16. The British driver does not sustain damage to his right rear tire, while Charles Leclerc’s endplate shatters and flies away. Shortly after, radio communications intensify. The Monegasque driver’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi states that the loss of downforce ranges between 20 and 30 points. It eventually proved to be been worse, considering also the double disqualification: as car number 16 was found to be underweight, while car number 44 with excessive plank wear.
The performance of Charles Leclerc’s damaged car is good, and in the following laps, he stays on track due to its clear competitiveness. Charles Leclerc himself makes the decision when directly asked by the pit wall after evaluating all factors. His pace is excellent, and the slight braking imbalance during front-end push phases can be managed well, thanks also to specific mappings such as entry differential and brake balance.
Charles Leclerc is even faster than his Maranello teammate, who, struggling with tire wear, decides to let the Monegasque pass him. Unfortunately, the maneuver is poorly managed. Lewis Hamilton did not want to take risks or expose himself to rivals, so the swap took place four laps later than planned. This created some tension within Ferrari, but no real controversy arose. After all, nervousness is part of the game.
Charles Leclerc did not understand the reason for delaying the position swap, as the pit wall was essentially unable to form a precise picture of the situation. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur clarified the issue after the Chinese Grand Prix, blaming the international broadcast, which, despite denying it, deliberately aired only a portion of the team radio, creating a controversy that was quickly dismissed by those involved.
Thanks to Charles Leclerc’s incident, a particular feature of the SF-25 could be observed. It highlights the evolution of this generation of single-seaters regulated by wing car rules on flexible wings. The front specification of car number 16 no longer had the side panel after contact with Lewis Hamilton. This refers to the vertical partition that serves to “close” the specification, primarily limiting the generation of harmful tip vortices.
There is also a secondary purpose: generating an outwash effect necessary to clear the turbulent airflow mass moving behind the rear tire. Keeping this in mind, we can focus on Ferrari’s development in terms of the aeroelasticity of the front wing. As frequent viewers of onboard footage, we can always notice the vertical movement of the flaps, a cyclic motion in the two load phases: high and low.
Through images, it is possible to identify how the wing lowers at the outermost sections, almost touching the asphalt. Naturally, in the outermost area, the aerodynamic forces exert the greatest leverage, leading to the highest local deformation compared to the standard static configuration. How this deflection is achieved is a problem that Ferrari has successfully addressed over time.
The Maranello team has worked on the arrangement of carbon fiber layers, interwoven according to how forces act on the component, using a specific and effective layout. The layers of this particular fiber, used by all Formula 1 teams, have different weaves that, depending on how they are positioned during the manufacturing process, determine a varying degree of aeroelasticity, making them more or less flexible in one of the three coordinated directions.
The number of layers and their orientation influence how the wing lowers when subjected to maximum load, which naturally occurs on straights. The same applies to the phase in which it rises when the downforce decreases during cornering. Clearly, the wing’s flexion at the Shanghai circuit in China was greater due to the absence of the endplate. However, if we analyze the same type of damage in from two years ago in the Mexico City Grand Prix, we will notice that the flexion was significantly lower, confirming Ferrari’s progress in aeroelasticity.
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