F1 | Ferrari SF-24: attitude changes promoted to the simulator

In Sakhir you can breathe a Grand Prix atmosphere. In the garages, the preparation of the single-seaters is feverish: in the garages, not visible from the pitlane due to the use of windscreens, there are also the second cars being set up which were not seen in last week's tests. F1 is in full swing: with the season opener taking place on Saturday, every program has been brought forward.

Ferrari closed the tests with a very consistent SF-24: the red car is considered the “challenger” of Red Bull, ahead of McLaren and Mercedes and Aston Martin further behind. The Cavallino staff is aware of the material made available by Enrico Cardile's technical staff and the feeling is that the new car has overcome the endemic problems that had afflicted the SF-23.

The fear is that this Ferrari has far surpassed the potential that we had seen on the world champion RB19, but there is a strong doubt that the SF-24 will start as the F1 closest to the new Red Bull, despite the awareness that the RB20 represents an important leap forward and, perhaps, he may have some uncertainty in the start-up phase of the season due to the complexity of his project, but, when it becomes fully operational it could make a big difference again.

The Prancing Horse technicians have assessed that Max Verstappen, at least on paper, seems uncatchable for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in race pace, while Sergio Perez, less comfortable with a very fast car, but difficult and difficult to understand (it was designed to the Dutch three-time world champion) could be vulnerable.

Nobody says it clearly, but Ferrari could aim for a front row seat. In Maranello they feel this responsibility and in the days that separated the pre-championship tests from the first GP they worked hard to analyze all the data collected in the three days of testing to evaluate on all the simulation systems which changes to adopt in view of the Bahrain GP.

The SF-24 has shown neutral behavior which makes it relatively easy for the pilots to drive, so it will now be possible to take some tuning concepts to the extreme, without however running the risk of going out of the tire use window on a track that is closed -and-go with acceleration and braking.

In the long runs, the red one seemed very competitive with the harder compound tyres, C1 and C2, while with the softer C3 it suffered greater wear than expected. The work on the simulator, therefore, was aimed at deciding on adjustments that achieve better exploitation of the red coverage.

Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari SF-24 in the pitlane

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

If a good balance has already been found at the front, the same cannot be said at the rear. Not that there is a design error in the new suspension which has remained faithful to the pull rod scheme (it is the only team together with its “cousin” Haas to have retained the tie rod), but rather the technicians had prepared a wide range of adjustments and three days of testing were not enough to find the most suitable solution for Sakhir.

In recent days, therefore, we have looked for the right settings of shock absorbers and bars, associated with heights from the ground and incidence of the wings, to find the best working basis to start the race weekend with the most competitive package possible…