What Ferrari’s new rake tells us about its 2021 F1 car. The rake was there to measure key new developments that Ferrari had fitted to its car.

A handful of Formula 1 teams have already been openly testing 2021 parts, but in Abu Dhabi there was special interest in how Ferrari was evaluating the changes. For the Italian team emerged in first free practice with a brand new rake at the rear of the car that offered clues to the complexity of understanding the impact of next year’s tweaks.

The framework of the rake was heavily contoured to limit its displacement of the airflow and minimise the affect it has on the readings captured by the kiel probes mounted on it.

Interestingly, this extremely large rake also has the kiel probes mounted in a more flow orientated way too, breaking with the more rigid grid-style formation we are used to seeing.

This gives us an indication of the flow structures that the Ferrari aerodynamicists are trying to evaluate too, as they look to capture data about the mushroom shaped wake that’s created by the diffuser.

The rake was there to measure key new developments that Ferrari had fitted to its car. It had a new floor to evaluate which featured three twisted fins in the middle of the diagonal cutout, as the designers look to prime some of the airflow before it reaches the rear tyre.

Meanwhile, the dog-eared corner that appeared on the original 2021 specification floor was replaced with a series of more vertical fins, as the Scuderia’s aerodynamicists are already looking to investigate the effects of solutions that micro manage the airflow.