The 2022 French Grand Prix is highly anticipated as it will be the penultimate round before the summer break and will inaugurate the second part of the Formula 1 season. In addition to the importance related to the standings, various developments are expected at Paul Ricard for the a few teams. Among the most anticipated, as often happens, there are also those of Scuderia Ferrari, with the F1-75 aiming to continue the battle for the two world championships until the end of the season.
Work continues focused on improving the efficiency of the F1-75
The F1-75 that could be seen in the pits of the Le Castellet circuit confirmed the adoption of the rear wing introduced in Canada on Charles Leclerc’s car, later used on both cars at Silverstone. The new ‘generation’ of wings which the Maranello team has been working on, introduced starting with the high-load specification for the Montmelo circuit in Barcelona, has allowed the Italian car to gain efficiency, especially when the DRS is open.
Up to now, Ferrari has been the car that, on average, has managed to produce the highest downforce and this has often allowed it to go very fast in corners and at those circuits where the peak load generated counts more than the efficiency of the package. The excellent potential in slow corners is also dictated by a mechanical and suspension set-up that has made the F1-75 shine so far in all types of corners. The intent of the Maranello technical department was therefore not to give up this aerodynamic load, but to improve the efficiency of the lower load packages, thanks to the new rear wings, and more generally that of the car body, with the new sidepods and the new engine cover introduced in the Silverstone package.
A few days ago formu1a.uno had anticipated that Ferrari would introduce other developments to improve the load and efficiency of the F1-75 between the French and Hungarian GPs, so as to continue the work described above, which started in Spain.
New floor at Paul Ricard: the entrance to the Venturi channels has been revolutionized
In the first part of the 2022 Formula One season, Ferrari focused on eliminating porpoising, by introducing a considerable series of new floor specifications, already from the testing sessions in Bahrain. In Maranello they managed to mitigate this problem a lot and in this sense France will give another important answer with its high speeds. A floor was then introduced in Barcelona which is an evolution of the one already used on the F1-75 in the pre-season tests, to which some innovations had been introduced at the entrance to the Venturi channels and below the bottom, a part often not visible but no less important, indeed. It was a specification ‘copied’ then by Red Bull in some macro features.
For now, only on Charles Leclerc’s car number 16, a new update to the floor has made its appearance in France which sees an important modification of the front area, the very critical one for the entrance of the very important Venturi channels. Massively modifying the conformation of the inlet that brings the air under the body means changing the entire flow rate that then produces the aerodynamic load between the central and rear parts of the car.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma! Enter the online Puma Store and shop securely! And get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
If up to the Spanish Grand Prix the entry profile rose gradually between the outside and inside, in the specification introduced at Montmelo had already undergone an important change in the inclination of the ramp. As reported by Piergiuseppe Donadoni and Paolo D’Alessandro for formu1a.uno, the new specification seen at the Paul Ricard circuit makes it even more aggressive than the previous one, with a real step that increases the airflow in the revised Silverstone undercut, consequently moving the flow below the floor in the most central part of the entrance of the Venturi channels.
Leave a Reply