Charles Leclerc prefers a single-seater “focused” on the front which leaves the rear free to move, to attack the entrance to the curve with a braking carried up to the rope. Carlos Sainz, unlike the Monegasque, likes a rear that is well attached to the asphalt. Two different ways of interpreting the driving of a ground effect single-seater, suggesting that during the 2023 season the development of the SF-23 has gone towards one driver rather than the other.
And someone had maliciously pointed out how throughout the championship Ferrari, at different times, had favored Sainz rather than Leclerc. After the summer break we witnessed the Spaniard's brightest moment as he went from pole position in Monza to success in Singapore.
The introduction of a new fund at Suzuka, however, went in the direction of Charles: when the Monegasque rediscovered the feeling with the red one he was able to extract from the SF-23 all the potential he had available, starting from the GP of Japan onwards three pole positions and four podiums. And, then, it was said that Ferrari wanted to favor the “first driver” who was discussing a renewal of the three-year contract.
Photo by: Ferrari
Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari team principal is confident for 2024
None of this because Fred Vasseur, during the Christmas lunch with the F1 journalists, was keen to underline: “I remember perfectly that a year ago in this same room I received many questions regarding the topic 'Charles number one and Carlos number two of the team'. We have demonstrated on several occasions that we guarantee our pilots more than equal treatment, I believe that Singapore was the best example.”
“Charles agreed to start the race on a set of soft tires in order to overtake Russell and control him, all to help Carlos. We have two drivers who are doing a good job, Carlos was very strong after the summer break with two excellent weekends in sequence in Monza and Singapore, and he was probably a stimulus to Charles, as we saw at the end of the season.”
“We will continue in this direction, I don't want to have one good resource and another second level, we have two cars and two good drivers, and I think one of the positive aspects of the season was the performance of Carlos and Charles. They guaranteed the team practically the same points, with a small difference and we want to continue like this.”
Photo by: Erik Junius
Ferrari SF-23
But how will it be possible to offer the two pilots the feeling of playing a game on equal terms in 2024? And the answer that came from Maranello was clearer than ever: the technicians are working on a car that will have to be “easy to drive”. The 676, therefore, will have completely different characteristics from the SF-23 which goes down in the archives as a single-seater difficult to control at the limit and rather difficult to fine-tune.
We know how narrow the window of use was for this year's red and how sensitive it was to crosswinds while in yaw: two characteristics that transformed its behavior on the track without warning.
Ferrari dedicated time and resources to understanding where the limits of the SF-23 came from and the staff directed by Enrico Cardile carried out important analysis work to understand in which direction to go in the hope of putting a car on track that could have a constant performance on all tracks in the world championship.
We have already talked about a new frame and a miniature transmission box in width which will allow a larger diffuser and a more extreme rear suspension, while remaining in the tradition of the well-known pull rod scheme, but in the Sport Management the simulation models have evolved thanks to whom the knowledge of ground effect single-seaters should have allowed important leaps in quality.
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The 676 gearbox will be miniaturized to be very narrow
The 676 will not be a clone of the Red Bul RB20 as the new AlphaTauri could easily be, but it will be a Ferrari which, while taking up some concepts from Milton Keynes, will maintain its own easily recognizable matrix. There are those who talk about revolution, but Vasseur holds back on this issue…
“Revolutionary, that's not the right word. We have had the same technical regulations for three years now and in this situation a project cannot be changed massively. We are in a scenario in which a handful of tenths of a second make the difference. Having said that, we must certainly take a step forward and not underestimate anything, we will change 95% of the components of the single-seater, and when put that way it may seem like a revolution, but it isn't.”
“In the end, as I already said, it will be a question of tenths and we are aware that if we improve by a larger margin than our rivals we will look good, but if someone from the rival teams manages to do better then everything will be reduced. What I can say now is that we are all pushing, and the drivers are also involved at the heart of the project.”
We will have to wait until February 13th, the day of the launch of the eagerly awaited red, to find out what this new Ferrari will be like: this year in Maranello no one has dared to make predictions on performance after the bitter disappointments of the SF-23 on its debut. But already from the filming day that will follow the presentation, it will be easy to understand from the faces of the drivers whether the target of the “easy to drive” car has been achieved…
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