How Technical Directive 39/22 affected Ferrari F1-75 performance

After the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari lost a lot in terms of race pace and the situation has barely changes in the last races, after a first part of the season during which the F1-75 car was unbeatable in slow and medium corners.

Ferrari has therefore lost it’s advantage in terms of mechanical, rather than aerodynamic, downforce. From this point of view, something has been indeed lost but not enough to make it the real weak point of the car after the Technical Directive 39 was introduced at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. In fact, at high speed corners the F1-75 is still able to show a solid pace: what is missing is competitiveness in low speed corners, an aspect that in theory is more related to the mechanical grip.

If we add to this the evidence of a Ferrari less aggressive on the curbs, a car clearly more nervous in dealing with them, and which in recent races is suffering from high tire degradation, all the clues lead to a poor mechanical grip generated by the F1-75 suspension system. However, this was a strong point up to Hungary: so what could have happened since the Hungaroring event?

The Technical Directive 39/22 affected the performances of many teams, but more so that of Scuderia Ferrari, despite the fact that team principal Mattia Binotto described its impact as ‘negligible’. We assume that even a loss of a tenth in the close battle between the Maranello team and Red Bull could have made the difference. However, it would seem the impact was something more ‘negligible’, something which has broken that subtle balance on which Formula 1 cars are often inclined to race.

Ferrari was forced, like many other teams, to increase the ride height from the ground with an actually negligible loss of load since the F1-75 has always been one of those cars, together with Red Bull but also Alfa Romeo, which managed not to lose too much load even when the ride height varied. However, the new DT39 has resulted in the stiffening of the suspension structure in order to be able to comply with the new parameters imposed by the Federation in terms of rigidity and wear of the board under the floor.

A change of this type is not minimal, on the contrary. At Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, the technicians found themselves dealing with a ‘new’ F1-75, more unknown and unpredictable. A car that now has an operating window that has clearly narrowed mainly due to ‘limited’ mechanics. In Zandvoort the situation improved slightly but the tyre degradation remained high and the balance was not ideal. At the Monza circuit, also thanks to the characteristics of the track that made the Technical Directive impact less significant, a better balance and competitiveness was found but the degradation remained higher than what could be seen in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season, as explained by F1 tech experts Piergiuseppe Donadoni and Paolo D’Alessandro for formu1a.uno.

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The next round of the championship, which takes place at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore will be an important step from this point of view.

Now Scuderia Ferrari’s goal for the final part of the season is no longer to aim for winning every Grand Prix but, first of all, to be able to once again fully understanding the car, improving the F1-75 balance and recalibrating the setup to return to using softer settings. Will it be possible? Nobody has been able (or wanted) to give any guarantees, according to formu1a.uno.