In the first race of the 2020 Formula One season, Scuderia Ferrari opted to use a medium-to-low aerodynamic set-up in an attempt to counter the strong drag that the SF1000 suffers on the straights.
As pointed out by motorsportweek.com, the Maranello team actually used a ‘spoon’ rear-wing throughout the Austrian Grand Prix race weekend in order to reduce resistance. The spoon wing was also used in the second week of testing in Barcelona, and was also taken to the original season-opener in Australia, but of course never run.
The wing has a more neutral main plane in the area where it meets the endplates, while in the central area it has a greater aerodynamic footprint. This reduces the drag, without losing too much in aerodynamic downforce. Yest such a solution can be considered fairly extreme and the Italian side was the only team that went down this route at the Red Bull Ring last weekend. To make a direct comparison with last year’s SF90 car, the spoon-style wing was only used by Ferrari at one race – Azerbaijan – which prefers lower downforce than Austria due to its very long straights.
It’s a clear symptom of the SF1000 that it suffers from high drag, and this forces engineers to sacrifice some downforce to seek more straight-line speed. It is almost certain that Ferrari will confirm this at the weekend for the second race on the Red Bull Ring circuit.
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