Ferrari to test aerodynamic level of SF-24 with aero rakes in Friday practice

Scuderia Ferrari arrives in Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix with good hopes. This morning, the Italian media exchanged a few words with team principal Frederic Vasseur, whom they met in the paddock while heading to Ferrari’s hospitality area. Smiling as always, the Frenchman expressed confidence ahead of the thirteenth race weekend of the 2024 Formula 1 championship. A brief comment that underscores the historic Italian team’s desire to emerge from this technical impasse that has destroyed recent dreams of glory. Carlos Sainz has indicated that the SF-24 currently lags by about 0.2 seconds behind Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes.

The possibility of recovering the performance gap that Ferrari currently suffers is possible. The Spaniard seemed quite confident in this regard, as did Charles Leclerc, who, off the record, reiterated his maximum commitment to getting out of the negative spiral Ferrari has been in since the victorious Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Monte Carlo. It remains to be seen how the Hungarian weekend will be approached, always keeping in mind that the Hungaroring circuit should partially mask the flaws that the latest aerodynamic upgrade package from Spain have revealed.

The high downforce rear wing, the one from Monte Carlo, will offer a significantly greater amount of vertical thrust. We are talking about a specification with which the SF-24 single-seater has performed very well, showing a planted rear end combined with the solidity of the front end. It is worth reiterating that the F1 track in Budapest is not comparable to the streets of the Principality. However, in the hope of a perfect “setup construction” by the Maranello technicians, the circuit layout offers the potential to perform well. This was the thought reiterated by Fred Vasseur again this morning.

Thanks to exclusive images taken by F1 journalists and reporters directly from the Hungarian pit lane, we understood that Ferrari will hit the track in the first free practice sessions with a lot of rakes. These large aerodynamic instruments are anchored in the area between the front tire and the sidepod. The rake is composed of several “Pitot tubes,” a very useful mechanism for measuring the pressure exerted on the car and, consequently, providing precise indications directly on the field of work, the track, which as always is the only “fair” judge regarding the performance of the cars.

We are talking about a specific test that Ferrari has decided to carry out in Budapest. The goal is clear: to collect as much data as possible in order to compare it with the factory data obtained through driver-in-the-loop simulations. Essentially, Maranello’s technicians will be able to meticulously analyze whether the real pressure field corresponds to what was calculated by the Computational Fluid Dynamics. Considering that the recent updates have not worked so far, this type of examination was somewhat expected. But let’s try to understand why the rakes are positioned in this specific area.

The new sidepods and updated floor have not worked properly. The problem is aerodynamic, and it is clear that the correlation between simulations and reality has unfortunately been absent. The engineers of the Prancing Horse are thus measuring the pressure in this precise area of the SF-24. The target? To increase the understanding of the flow structure downstream of the front tire. It is a sort of ongoing check to precisely understand the structure of the fluid that hits and then circumnavigates the sidepods and the initial portion of the floor.

Therefore, we can infer that Ferrari might have erroneously considered the flow structure in this area of the car, with the sidepods consequently not being optimized by the fluid that hits them. This likely leads to several problems. At the moment, it is not easy to understand what is happening because only after the analyses carried out during the day will the Italian team be able to make a complete evaluation. There is talk of possible small updates to the floor. However, considering the positioning of the rakes, these do not seem to be tests to evaluate potential changes to the SF-24’s floor.