Despite the many restrictions and constraints, the Scuderia Ferrari technicians managed to intervene to drastically reduce the drag, a serious issue of last year’s SF1000 car. The work done on the wide nose is appreciable while respecting the homologation of the deformable structure.
Ferrari had courage: the SF21 represents a clean break with the SF1000. And the change of acronym is not at all coincidental, while several teams have opted to simply add a B to last year’s denomination.
Without going to look at where the SF21 benefited from the development tokens in the rear, one can well understand the effort to improve aerodynamic efficiency in the front area which was constrained by a wide homologated nose and which, therefore, could be optimized without modifying the deformable structure that would have had to undergo a new prohibited crash test.
The aerodynamicists directed by David Sanchez have done a very interesting job to try to reduce the drag of the Red car by proposing a newly designed front part: the support pylons of the front wing have been narrowed and also the leading edge of the two profiles that support the nose are much more profiled to create less drag.
On the tip of the bulb there is no longer the small hole useful for bringing air into the driver compartment, while the beautiful interpretation with which the attachment of the cape to the nose has made it possible to streamline at least a part of the front, showing the care to which the entire SF21 has been aerodynamically submitted to overturn the disappointing concepts of 2020.
It is also worth mentioning the cluster of flow deviators that appeared on the sides of the air vent of the S-duct in the upper part of the frame: they are four elements that favor the down wash of the flow and highlight the accuracy of the aerodynamic development, with creative solutions that they should give little results everywhere for the new car, but added together they should ensure an important leap in quality for the Red car.
The front wing has remained faithful to the philosophy of the out wash, which is the desire to move the flow outside the front wheel in order to reduce the negative effect of the tyres and use the channeled air to clean up the turbulent wake which carries the fillets destined for the barge boards.
In short, the immobility that struck Enrico Cardile’s staff last year seems to have been swept away and in Maranello the effervescence in the ideas of previous years has been revised. We hope that the right path has been taken: we will find out tomorrow on the first day of the pre-season testing session in Bahrain.
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