Ferrari is under scrutiny, but it needs a little time. The aerodynamic package brought to Sakhir by the Scuderia is important because it addresses several aspects of the SF-25, and it’s not certain that the changes designed to increase downforce have already delivered the full data results seen in the wind tunnel.
The Maranello team found itself running the modified car in conditions that were certainly not ideal yesterday: a dirty track with sand blown in from the desert and prohibitive temperatures that caused the tires to degrade after just the first flying lap. In short, difficult conditions for assessing the significance of the innovations intended to help revive the red car.
A determined Charles Leclerc tries to push through the difficulties and is ready to drive beyond the SF-25’s issues to confirm the fourth place seen yesterday in practice: the Monegasque is confident that there’s still performance to be unlocked from the Scuderia’s car in its new configuration, so he looks forward to qualifying with optimism.
Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, seems to be in serious difficulty: he doesn’t feel the car and complained a lot about the conditions he was forced to drive in, not even finding the parameters from the preseason tests. The seven-time world champion usually takes a very methodical approach to development work, and perhaps Lewis was expecting more from the package put together by Loic Serra’s engineers, although it’s certain that these innovations work and are not to be discarded.
The Maranello staff seems unwilling to place too much importance on the introduced modifications to avoid creating unrealistic expectations, but we believe the car still needs to find the right setup to achieve the balance necessary to take advantage of the increased downforce the changes are supposed to provide.
In Giorgio Piola’s image for Motorsport, which we have included at the start of the article, we can observe a new detail of the SF-25: Diego Tondi‘s aerodynamics team has revised the fin with a ramp of the diffuser towards the rear deformable zone, which is now more straight and single-bellied. However, what stands out is the disappearance of the step seen in Australia, replaced by a strange triangular protrusion, a sort of tongue under which there is a free airflow passage. In Maranello, they insist that the modifications seen in Bahrain were already planned, but we suspect that they are the result of the disappointments emerging from the preseason tests and benefited from the ongoing wind tunnel work.
The tongue in the diffuser is, in fact, made with rapid prototyping, a method that allows testing non-structural solutions before final parts are approved. It’s a way to accelerate the development timeline, and it’s almost certain that there was a rush in the composites department to ensure that three pieces for each new element were ready for Sakhir, so both cars could be fitted and at least have a backup. Ferrari’s tongue simulates the bow fin of a boat, which has been shown on other cars.
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