Scuderia Ferrari is heading to the United States for the first of the last four rounds of the 2022 Formula 1 season, but the most important work is carried out back home Maranello, as the Italian side is now mainly focused on next year, when Ferrari hopes to finally be able to challenge its rivals for the world championships
With this in mind, the Maranello team is working on the final details of its aero design for project 675, the code name for the 2023 Formula 1 challenger. Just as happened last year when he missed of a few races in the final part of the season, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto did not travel to Japan for the Suzuka race and he will most likely not be present in Mexico City for the Mexican Grand Prix, with the clear goal of focusing on preparations for 2023: final phases of project 675 are are crucial for specific technical choices regarding the 2023 car. This same approach definitely worked out last season.
One of the key issues Ferrari is working on is fixing the high tyre degradation seen in recent race. At the Zandvoort circuit we saw that the F1-75 had to use its tyres in a different way, as pointed out by formu1a.uno. In Japan, things went slightly better regarding the consistency on the slick tyres, but this was not shown on Sunday due to the rain that affected the race. Ferrari hoped to have an advantage by saving two new sets of mediums for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, but eventually the slicks were never used, while the Intermediates did not suit the F1-75 car at the Suzuka circuit.
An improved correlation, now reliable for the Maranello engineers, limited the damage after Ferrari was forced to make changes due to the technical directive TD39/22. While nobody in Maranello admitted that the F1-75 was indeed affected by the introduction of this controversial technical directive, until the Belgian Grand Prix we admired a car that which was able to attack the kerbs, mainly the chicanes, better than any rival car. Now Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have to avoid them as much as possible. This situation is seen both in Qualifying and race pace, which proves it is in fact a performance issue and not reliability related.
Given the changes for next season, the 2023 Formula One cars will have to run higher than the current challengers, which means they will have a less extreme ground effect due to the mandatory rise of the floor edge by 15mm compared to the current rules. Yet the most important rule change is related to raising the height at the end of the Venturi channels, in the vent that sends flows towards the diffuser, leading to a big reduction of the known suction effect and rear downforce. As a result, teams will once again try to find downforce from the front and rear wings, with an increased percentage compared to the total load generated by the car.
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Pirelli 2023 F1 tyres
Pirelli’s Head of F1 & Car Racing, Mario Isola, pointed out that the tyres for the 2023 Formula 1 season (which will be tested next weekend during the United States Grand Prix free practice and later in Mexico City) are being designed with two main goals in mind: to give less understeer and attempt to keep the tyre ‘deltas’ consistent between the compounds.
The official tyre manufacturer did not changes to the fronts but all the set of tyres, including the rears. It is worth pointing out that the understanding of new tyres will be very important given the deformation of the tyre when it’s under stress, and in general its structure, has a significant influence for the aerodynamics of a Formula 1 car.
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