While Red Bull will be able to extract more performance from its RB18 by reducing the weight of the car at Imola, Scuderia Ferrari is working on some fronts that have the important goal of improving the efficiency of the F1-75 challenger. A car designed from the minds that also created SF70H. This was also the first car of a new series of regulations, which shares with the F1-75 the not excellent aerodynamic efficiency but the great qualities in slow corners, traction and tire management.
As anticipated by David Sanchez, in Maranello they are working to design a new floor that can solve the problems related to aerodynamic bouncing in an important way. This would allow the Italian car to express itself to its maximum potential. At Ferrari they have not yet managed to reduce porpoising as much as on the RB18. “There was a lot of talk about Mclaren during the first tests, but Red Bull is the team that had the least problems of all in terms of porpoising” – an Alfa Romeo engineer told us – “I’m sure Newey has foreseen it in the design phase and worked as much on the mechanics as on the aerodynamics to solve it”.
According to formu1a.uno, Scuderia Ferrari has to keep the car a little bit higher than the RB18 to avoid harmful bouncing at high speeds and braking, especially the more violent ones, as well as a tie rod at the rear of the floor. This component avoids excessive bending of the external parts that should run closer to the ground in order to generate more downforce from the floor with however an important limit that is a minimum height that generates the separation of the flow, consequently activating porpoising. Eliminating the tie rod would mean strengthening the floor, with losses in terms of both budget and weight. Hence the FIA concession of a component otherwise considered illegal.
The particular aerodynamic concept of the F1-75 still manages to limit the small percentage loss of load of the lower part of the car, generating it with the upper part, which however costs something more in terms of drag. Tires and rear wing are the macro components which, on this new generation of cars, generate the highest percentage of aerodynamic resistance.
Bringing a floor to the track that would allow Ferrari to make the F1-75 race even closer to the ground, would allow the rear wing to be unloaded and consequently to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the Italian car, taking an important step forward in terms of performance. Also with regard to the sidepods, Ferrari has left itself room for maneuver to be able to reduce them in terms of dimensions.
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“The developments we are working on, we will introduce them only when we are sure they will be mature enough to allow us to take a right step forward”. – the Ferrari boss admitted.
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