The last few races have not been ideal for Scuderia Ferrari, especially regarding the race pace, as the Maranello team’s last Grand Prix win dates back to the Austrian Grand Prix in July. Unfortunately, what followed seven consecutive race wins for Red Bull, which allowed Max Verstappen to secure the 2022 Formula 1 world championship, with Red Bull also very close to clinching the Constructors’ title.
The main positive aspect was that the F1-75 cars still proved to be very fast on a flying lap, just like in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season, as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were able to take four pole positions during the last seven races which were won by their rivals. The tyre degradation issues has led to many frustrations in the last few months, with the Italian side seeing any hopes of fighting for the 2022 world championship titles disappear, as Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing built an impressive gap at the top.
Yet now the focus is on preparing the 2023 F1 season and building up momentum with the hope of being able to challenge Red Bull until the end of the campaign. Despite the short-term disappointments for the overall results, the race weekends since August have given the Maranello team some reasons to be confident as it works on its project for the 2023 Formula 1 championship. In effect, it’s been a period of taking stock.
“It’s been crucial to confirm that we’re going in the right direction,” – Scuderia Ferrari English senior performance engineer Jock Clear – “And as soon as you have these question marks over, ‘okay, have we gone the wrong way in set up?’, you have to be quite brave. You’ve got to understand where you are, you can’t afford to carry on. It’s a bit like if you’re lost, the last thing you should be doing is just barrelling down the road saying, ‘let’s see what happens later.’ Stop and look at the map. And that’s what we did, we stopped and looked at the map. And you might say that cost us some valuable race performance over those five races. But it would be unwise not to do that, because the future is always there. You can never ignore the fact that you must keep on top of exactly which direction you’re developing in. And we did that, we stopped, we looked at the map. And now we’ve confirmed that we’re going in the right direction.” – said Jock Clear, who is also Driver Coach for Charles Leclerc.
As part of identifying the issues that have affected the F1-75 car in this second part of the year, the Italian side performed comparative tests in practice between the floor specification introduced during the French Grand Prix weekend and the previous floor version, with the goal of making sure that the direction Ferrari had taken was indeed the right one rather than being confused.
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“We looked at the overall situation. And obviously, it’s a relative sport, you look at where you are, and you think it looks like you’ve stepped back a bit from France. And the obvious thing we put on in France was the floor. So we put the previous floor back on the car. And actually we’ve concurred that the new floor was better. So we went back to it. So yeah, we did a bit of an A/B, A/B, A/B just to confirm that we hadn’t put something on the car that wasn’t working. But actually that floor worked fine.” – he added.
The Maranello team therefore continued to work on its development plan and in the previous round of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, a new floor specification was brought to the track. The difficult weather conditions during the Japanese weekend meant it was not that easy to collect data and feedback, but Ferrari’s overall feeling is that the update worked as it was expected to.
“This floor was available in Singapore. But it’s a floor that’s producing a lot of high-speed downforce, basically. And so it wasn’t particularly applicable in Singapore. It’s not hugely different. And I think unless you lay the two side-by-side, which we’re not going to let you do, then you’re not really going to notice the detail! And to be brutally honest, it’s expensive. You’ve come this far around the world with new parts. And obviously, we had to bring all the old parts as well in case it didn’t work. You’ve got to be pretty confident. And we were very confident that this was going the right way. It’s working. And the proof is in the pudding. I think we expected Red Bull to be very strong [at Suzuka]. Spa is a similar circuit, and they gave us a bit of a whooping there. And we were very pleased to be as close as we were [in Japanese GP qualifying]. In fact, we were very frustrated not to be on pole, because pole was there for the taking really for either of our drivers.” – the Ferrari senior performance engineer continued.
Jock Clear confirmed that the floor introduced at Suzuka will be used on the F1-75 cars for the remaining four races of the year: “I mean, you look at the circuits that are to come, they’re all going to benefit from a certain amount of high speed. This floor, as I say, was available in Singapore. But that circuit is a bit Monaco-esque. But all the races from now on this floor will suit.”
New parts continue to come through, although don’t expect to see anything too revolutionary in the final events of the season.
“By this time in the year, race 17 or 18, or whatever we are, you’re looking at the fine tuning now, really. And obviously, we’re in a situation where the championship is very much a challenge to now maintain P2. obviously, we want to come to races and win, so the motivation is still there to bring development, and you can’t stop developing, you can’t say let’s save our money for next year, because you need to just keep turning the wheel.”
While the Italian side had to make some minor changes to the floor in order to comply with the anti-porpoising Technical Directive 39/22, most of the updates seen in 2022 will also be useful for next year’s project, which means Ferrari will attempt to take advantage and test them on track in this last part of the season:
“The development is organic. Because all the teams are already looking very much at next year. And obviously we want to be as competitive, if not more so, next year. And the moment these F1 cars stop running at the end of November, you’re back in the tunnel, you’re back in the simulator, but that’s not quite the same. So we really need to maximise these last few races, from the point of view of developing and bringing the car to another level. Yes, we know that the championship is a very long shot now. But we’ve got to stay ahead of Mercedes, and so we’ll be happy to bring performance to do that. But also just keep generating more and more organic development. And that will give us confidence going into next year.” – Jock Clear clear.
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