F1 | Ferrari: 3 new rear wings before the Hungarian package

Charles Leclerc’s third place in the Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna GP did not meet the Cavallino’s expectations, even if the Monegasque grabbed second place in the drivers’ world championship, overtaking Sergio Perez, in crisis at Imola as never before this season.

The technicians talk about an aerodynamic package that worked on the Santerno, even if it is irritating to see a car, the McLaren, slip between the Red Bull and the red when the gap is one tenth of a second per lap. The two drivers confirmed that even in Monte Carlo it will not be possible to precisely measure the actual extent of the changes seen at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari, so it will be necessary to wait for the Canadian and Spanish GPs to have a clear evaluation on the first package of interventions.

Fred Vasseur insists that Ferrari must have an aggressive approach in this world championship, aware that developments can have a very important impact on the progress of the season. The Scuderia has tried to divide the championship into three blocks to bring an update more or less to every third of the world championship, to spread the development budget granted by the spending constraints foreseen for 2024. According to the rumors filtered in the Santerno paddock, the next evolutionary step would have been scheduled for the Hungarian GP scheduled for July 21st.

It is not excluded that, unlike what happened in Miami, Ferrari could bring forward some of the updates planned for Budapest already at Silverstone. On the occasion of the first of the three American races on the calendar, by the French team principal’s own admission, the Imola package could have been brought forward by one GP. We didn’t want to run the risk of debuting the innovations in an event with the Sprint race format (which McLaren also managed…) preferring to wait for the first GP of the European sequence.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

But between one evolutionary step and another, with macro modifications, a series of minor interventions have been planned aimed at adapting the SF-24 to the characteristics of the route. In the Principality of Monaco next weekend we will see a new maximum load rear wing which will be followed by two other different solutions.

This is a very interesting fact if we consider that the red faced the first six races of the season with a rear wing configuration, despite facing very different tracks. The machine in the new configuration seems more sensitive to changes, having opened some windows of use, which require more specific solutions.

If being the third force in Imola (both in qualifying and in the race) may have been the fact that most angered Maranello, having reduced the gap from Red Bull to just one tenth must suggest that in Maranello they are on the right path. And playing ahead with evolutions can be a way to catch your opponents off guard…