Scuderia Ferrari unveiled the SF-23 with an exciting presentation last a few days ago, ‘in a stubborn and contrary direction’ with respect to the recent trends and especially as compared to Red Bull, which will only show its true car in the official pre-season testing session at the Bahrain International Circuit next Thursday.
The Maranello men worked on the SF-23 until late at night to ensure that everything went smoothly, which is not a given for a completely new car that should have started up without delays and covered the very first km of live control to do a few laps with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at the Fiorano circuit. Although the parameters had been set with the maximum protection, during a shakedown there can be issues of various types, even related to the assembly process. As happened, for example, to Mercedes on the Demo Day (15km) at Silverstone, the same day as the presentation of the W14. Fortunately, everything went well at Fiorano and the Tifosi received their Valentine’s gift.
It is clear that an important question, at least in the early stages, will concern porpoising. If the main objective for all teams during shakedowns is to verify that the installation of the car has been completed without any problems and all systems are functioning properly, this season, given the issues encountered on last filming days, the teams want to immediately remove the doubt that their new cars do not struggle with porpoising like in the 2022 Formula One championship.
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The team carried out the first 100 km of filming as planned – again at Fiorano – without any particular problems. Unlike some other teams, it will not carry out a second filming day before the pre-season testing session in Bahrain.
It is no coincidence that Scuderia Ferrari also focused the preliminary work mainly on an initial verification and correlation of the new anti-bouncing floor which, as a high-profile engineer confirmed for formu1a.uno on the sidelines of the presentation, has been completely redesigned. Has Ferrari become a less ground-effect car than the F1-75, with higher tunnels similar to Red Bull? It’s not so obvious but we’ll find out as the weeks go by. Meanwhile, the SF-23 did not suffer from porpoising at Fiorano, which, it would seem strange, was not so obvious.
Only some bottoming, which was encountered here and there, in the most bumpy parts of the circuit. However, the technicians of the Italian team await the most interesting responses from Bahrain. It should be noted that on the filming day there was a first quick shift between two different positions of the back support rod. A more aggressive position and a less aggressive one. For most of the 100 km the first version was used, allowing a certain bending of the pavement of the floor, which on the specification tested so far has lost the now known oval hole in front of the rear wheels. Both good signs.
Still talking to the engineer, other interesting things came out, as reported by formu1a.uno:
“We have acquired a lot of data and a lot of metrics with the F1-75, a task that we are happy with. Thanks to this we have implemented some solutions, which are not visible (therefore mainly in the background) and which of course I cannot tell you. Clearly we are waiting to go to the track in Bahrain to evaluate them”. The new floor is, and will be seen better in Bahrain, significantly different both in the design of the conveyors and the venturi tunnels. The main objective of the engineers was to produce a significant improvement in terms of downforce without penalizing aerodynamic efficiency. A really subtle technical balance, which on the F1-75 was broken with the introduction of the well-known anti-porpoising technical directive starting with the Belgian Grand Prix, and therefore something to be reviewed but with particular attention ahead of the 2023 Formula One championship.
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