It was a working Sunday after two weeks of summer vacation. Ferrari begins the second part of the season with the hope of turning around the season that is relegating it to a role of fourth force that is terribly tight.
The values of the F1 world championship have been revolutionized with the heat of the summer: even if Max Verstappen leads the world championship with a 78-point advantage over Lando Norris, it is commonly believed that McLaren is the reference single-seater. The MCL38 is considered the universal car that better than any other adapts to the different tracks of the world championship, while the Red Bull RB20, dominator at the beginning of the championship, seems to have lost the sceptre despite the three-time world champion.
Ferrari was supposed to be the challenger of the Milton Keynes team and, just when it had planned to catch up with the world champion, it started to slip back: it is currently third in the Constructors’ Championship, but there is no doubt that Mercedes has also changed pace by solving its problems and the W15 has collected three victories with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, so on the track the SF-24 seems the least competitive of the poker.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
The picture is far from rosy, even if Charles Leclerc inherited a third place at Spa-Francorchamps (after the exclusion of the winner Russell) that gave confidence to the Prancing Horse. In the Dutch GP, Max’s undisputed fiefdom, the Scuderia is looking for a relaunch in view of Monza.
Diego Tondi’s aerodynamicists would have identified the area of the red that generated the instabilities of the rear end, making the SF-24 suddenly “nervous” and, therefore, difficult to control at the limit and, despite the stop imposed by the FIA, in Maranello they would have managed to make those changes to the floor that should give the drivers the confidence to aspire to some results more in line with the team’s expectations.
Zandvoort, last year, had represented one of the lowest points of the 2023 season: the Dutch race had been approached as a test with the aim of getting out of a negative hump. The fruits of the work in the Netherlands had been seen later with a red car capable of showing the real value of the SF-23, a car born with too many defects.
Bottom detail, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: George Piola
The feeling is that in Maranello they are convinced that they have overcome the moment of serious difficulty before the race that reopens hostilities, and the aim is that something can already be seen right at Max’s home.
The Ferrari that is leaving for Holland is one that is very tight-lipped in making predictions, but the fact of making the flows turn towards the diffuser in a different way should ensure the aerodynamic load that is essential for tackling a difficult circuit with its banked turns 3 and 14, which require a specific setup because while they limit the lateral force of the tyres, they significantly increase the vertical thrust.
The simulator data would have been encouraging: will the track give other truths?
#Ferrari #SF24 #puts #load #uncertainty
