This is certainly not the Ferrari of late 2024 that we are seeing in these early stages of the 2025 F1 season. The red team is not proving competitive enough, to the point that, at the moment, the prospect of a win or even a podium seems distant. The causes are also to be found in shortcomings related to the anti-dive system.
In F1, “dive” refers to the load transfer that occurs on a single-seater between the rear and front ends. In particular, during braking, the load shifts forward, causing the nose to lower and the rear to lift.
Too much “dive” can compromise braking stability, aerodynamic balance, and the effectiveness of the DRS and suspension. For this reason, teams use the anti-dive system, a mechanical and geometric suspension solution that reduces or counteracts this lowering.
It acts on the angle of the suspension arms to oppose the vertical load transfer that occurs when braking ahead of a corner. On the website The Race, Northern Irish semi-retired racing car designer and motorsport pundit Gary Anderson carried out a comparative analysis between the different teams to understand how effective the anti-dive system being used is.
The F1 expert highlighted that, depending on the solution used as anti-dive, it can reduce the driver’s sensitivity under braking. With the car in such a condition, it becomes much easier to lock up. This means that the braking effort must be fairly constant, otherwise each braking will feel different.
For this reason, it becomes essential for the mechanics of the various teams to find the right balance between the need to counter the dive phenomenon and the need not to make the driving feel too uncomfortable for the driver.
From the analysis conducted by Gary Anderson, who compared the (visible) suspensions of all the cars, it emerges that while the front suspensions show different solutions, the anti-lift characteristics at the rear and the amount of rear suspension used by each team likely follow a similar distribution.
In that case, the stability of the car’s rake must be ensured either by stiffening the car or by increasing the ride height. In these first races, in fact, Ferrari has often had to increase the ride height, losing some performance.
According to Gary Anderson’s analysis, this could be explained by the fact that Ferrari features a weaker anti-dive solution compared to its rivals. Now the question is: will the Maranello team manage to recover in time this year, or should we already start looking ahead to 2026?
Source: f1ingenerale
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