Scuderia Ferrari continues to struggle in Formula 1, and it’s doing so in a rather poor fashion. It’s understandable for Red Bull to stay ahead, but this shouldn’t be the case with Mercedes and McLaren. Up until and including the Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Monte Carlo, everything seemed to be going well for the Italian side. Two wins in the 2024 Formula 1 championship, some clean race weekends, and a clear step forward in all on-track dynamics. Then came the downfall, sadly. The Canadian Grand Prix, where rain mixed things up at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, saw Ferrari make numerous mistakes and face reliability issues.
It’s normal for a negative spell to occur. Let’s remember Frederic Vasseur’s words: “We weren’t geniuses last week in Monaco, and we’re not idiots here in Montreal.” His point made sense at that moment and would have continued to do so if the balance had been restored after leaving the Isle of Notre-Dame.
However, balance has remained elusive in the subsequent races. Chaos took over the team, and things unraveled step by step. In other words, an underlying limiting condition has heavily impacted the remainder of the 2024 Formula 1 championship.
A significant part of the blame lies with the aerodynamic updates that were theoretically supposed to strengthen the Maranello team’s ambitions but instead unfortunately undermined them. These updates were expected to offer an improvement of 2 to 3 tenths of a second, enough to catch up with Red Bull, challenge the Austrian side on equal terms, and perhaps even give Ferrari a shot at the Formula 1 world title. That was the original plan. However, the driver-in-the-loop simulator told a different story. The hypothetical scenario was excellent, according to the key players. But when it came time to validate it on the track, a sporting tragedy unfolded.
Initially, there was some benefit of the doubt. It’s never easy in Formula 1 to get developments to work correctly. We have seen several teams install and then uninstall new components that later performed well in subsequent races. But the hope that this would be the case for Ferrari was short-lived because, unfortunately, the truth was different: the aerodynamic upgrade produced by the technical department led since recently by Italian aerodynamicist Enrico Cardile was flawed. It didn’t improve the car at all; instead, it led to a series of on-track tests that only exacerbated the situation.
When things don’t work, they need to be fixed. It’s a simple idea, but it conveys the necessary course of action. The historic Italian team’s first objective was to understand what was happening. Without knowing the cause of a problem, it’s impossible to fix it, and any attempt would be purely trial and error. While this might have worked for some in the past, it’s not the case for Ferrari, which rarely benefits from good fortune. As a result, several questions arise. One of the most interesting is about the methods a Formula 1 team employs in such cases—how a team reacts to these kinds of obstacles. What steps are taken to resolve doubts, take action, and at least patch up the issue? So, how did Ferrari respond?
The aerodynamic platform of the SF-24 single-seater was no longer stable, making it increasingly difficult to push the car to its limits and access its full potential. The aerodynamic updates led to a series of problems that forced the technicians of the Italian side to make several (sometimes drastic) changes to the car’s setup. This was a risky approach since understanding what was happening required experimentation. Unfortunately, this scenario didn’t yield results for four consecutive race weekends. As a result, the Maranello team’s car significantly underperformed during this period.
In this situation, Ferrari chose to be drastic. They did so because, according to the team, “they weren’t fighting for anything important.” Instead, they focused on optimizing the outcome. On one hand, this reasoning is acceptable, as they hoped to solve the problems quickly. The most prudent target seemed to be sacrificing short-term results to gain a better understanding of the car. In other words, there was the hope of suffering for one weekend in order to fully exploit the updates in the next one. Unfortunately, this strategy lasted a month and a half instead of just seven days.
Driving a car with untested setups and disrupting the handling isn’t easy. In this case, the driver suffers, doesn’t maximize performance, and faces the shame of an underwhelming result, all in the name of the cause: understanding and then correcting. The decisions on the setup were calculated by the Ferrari technicians and engineers because these choices were supposed to yield precise answers. These extreme choices, however, had a severe impact on the results, compromising them. From the outside, for those unaware of what was happening, these decisions might appear to be nothing more than conceptual technical errors.
Did this aggressive approach pay off? That’s another good question. You’d have to ask Ferrari. Considering the long time it took to fix the issues (since the new floor which was introduced at the Hungaroring circuit in Hungary only limited the damage rather than correcting it), perhaps not. Or perhaps adopting a different tactic would have delayed the partial resolution even further. Identifying the root cause of the problem compromised the results in these race weekends. Unfortunately, nothing different can be said about it. It’s a shame because the foundations for a different season were all there.
Finally, a few words about the medium to long-term future. From what the editorial team of funoanalisitecnica has recently learned, Ferrari believes (or perhaps hopes) that it can return to a high level of competitiveness, a status that would allow the two SF-24 cars to challenge the leaders, possibly beat them, and continue to nurture the dream of a constructors’ championship. Being confident in this sense is a good thing, and we’ll just have to wait and see how events unfold to confirm this hypothesis.
The Maranello team has several technical aerodynamic updates in the pipeline that should support this ambition. We refer to a development phase currently overseen by Diego Tondi, the new Ferrari Head of Aerodynamics.
The Italian engineer, along with the pool of technicians under his supervision, is putting in maximum effort. There’s talk of a further version of the floor, which will also feature new elements in the edge wing area. The main goal is to maximize the use of the inverted sidepods, which, although they have freed up several cubic centimeters in the undercut area, have not yet delivered the expected results in managing the turbulence generated by the tire’s rolling through the outwash effect. Other updates will come to the suspension, particularly the rear one.
The kinematics used in the pull-rod system will undergo some modifications in terms of internal components. The vehicle dynamics group aims to enhance the aero-mechanical interaction of the SF-24 single-seater. A new front wing is also in the works, as well as a different engine cover on the upper part. We can’t rule out further refinements in the sidepod area and the overall design of the side sections. It remains to be seen how quickly the Maranello factory will produce these updates, keeping in mind one thing: from now on, mistakes are forbidden.
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