The next round in Singapore could potentially be that of Max Verstappen’s second world champion. A scenario radically overturned compared to a few months ago, not only on the standings front, with Charles Leclerc apparently on the run after the Australian Grand Prix. Performance hierarchies have also been overturned, with a Red Bull currently overflowing and in stark contrast to a Ferrari that in the spring had the competitiveness to win in Barcelona, Monaco, Baku and France, the latter race following the successes of Silverstone and even more so of the Red Bull Ring. Thus a reversal of the front is outlined that has its roots far farther than just aerodynamic updates.
Simplistically limiting the reflections to the field of aerodynamics only, it can be said that during the development narrative much emphasis is placed on the absolute values of the aerodynamic forces load and resistance to motion, as well as their ratio, an indicator of efficiency. Equally important, however, is the distribution of these forces along the car. In an ideal world, to take advantage of every single fraction of tire grip, one would like both the front and rear axles to be able to reach their respective grip limits. In reality, however, this behavior is only approximated, with the teams taking note of it trying to direct the package towards a slight oversteer or understeer tendency, also taking into account the preferences of the driver, in fact the interpreter of the car called to enhance its potential. Problems arise in the presence of excessive imbalances, which ensure that one of the two axles reaches the grip limit well in advance of the other, which remains with a residual unused grip. If all this in qualifying is obscured by the extra grip of the new tire, in the race the problems emerge in all their criticality. The instability and imbalances of the car require the driver to sacrifice performance or make continuous corrections, inducing high tire wear.
All this highlights how much performance and balance are two different concepts, albeit not disconnected, in which one conditions the other. The implementation of updates often aims to intensify the intensity of the aerodynamic load or to reduce that of the drag, in fact benefiting the performance of the flying lap. However, their incorrect distribution creates budget imbalances that undermine tire management and the rider’s ability to fully exploit the potential found. Everything finds its synthesis in the words of Pierre WacheRed Bull technical director: “Every time it is difficult when theoretically you try to develop the car for performance and then you find yourself stuck in terms of set-up to rebalance the car. This means that you have to give up a bit of performance to get the correct balance, the one you want. I would say you lose some performance to improve it. It doesn’t mean it’s a lot, but it’s that kind of direction “. With these dynamics, Red Bull and Ferrari were the protagonists of two opposing paths.
At the start of the year, the Milton Keynes team was experiencing a delay in performance from their direct rivals, as highlighted by the six Ferrari pole positions in the first eight rounds. The team in particular struggled to stabilize tire pressures and temperatures on the flying lap, finding less competitiveness on Saturday than on Sunday. “I think I have a good race pace and then on Sunday we are able to stabilize the pressure better and make the tires work better“, Max Verstappen said after qualifying in Jeddah. “It’s all different than in qualifying, where you really have to get the tire preparation right and today it didn’t go well from that point of view”. Slowly Red Bull has recovered performance in the season, thanks to the updates introduced in the car, starting on the other hand to encounter balance problems, to further underline the dualism between the two aspects. The team has revealed the greatest budgetary difficulties in conjunction with the introduction of the updates in June and Julyrequiring several free practice sessions to find the optimal set-up and suffering a marked degradation in the race, as in Austria.
Red Bull found itself in exactly that situation mentioned by Wache of a stuck set-up in terms of options to rebalance the car. The work contributed to its resolution in numerous aspects: mechanical, aerodynamic and, last but not least, weight reduction. The RB18 was not only overweight, but the excess mass determined an unbalanced weight distribution towards the frontfueling chronic understeer. “The car was overweight and it was in the wrong places. This is the reason why it understeered and tended to lock “, explained Verstappen in Monza. It can also be imagined that the excess mass increased the mechanical load on the front end, contributing to the astonishing quickness of the front axle to warm up, to the point of overcoming the opposite excess and struggling to stabilize the pressures. Once the mass to be managed has been reduced the degrees of freedom for adjusting the suspension unit have increased, effectively “unlocking” the set-up. Once the lost balance was regained, Red Bull also regained performance and began to accumulate one victory after another.
Ferrari, on the other hand, has followed a diametrically opposite path. In the months of May and June, the Cavallino already had a very strong and balanced car, of which the management of deterioration was one of the strong points. The situation began to worsen with the introduction of the new fund in France, as explained by Binotto: “The development we had brought to France, practically the last from an aerodynamic point of view, it was done to improve the hopping and for us it should have been a significant step forward to reduce it. Inevitably, it also led to secondary behaviors, however desired, but that today are limiting us in something “. For Ferrari, a similar problem in terms of dynamics seemed to reoccur to that later solved by Red Bull, an increase in performance that compromised the management of the car’s budget. All this affecting tire degradation in the race, which has become a limiting factor for the F1-75. The Team Principal explained again after the Zandvoort race: “Both riders already on Friday they were not satisfied with the car’s balance between high and low speed. This makes the car more difficult to drive especially in racing situations, where there are many laps and no mistakes can be made. On the single qualifying lap there is always the new tire that covers these problems, because it gives that extra-grip that in some way the rider with his own sensitivity can manage on the flying lap ”.
Of particular interest is the comment on balancing problems in the transition from high to low speeds. In fact, from Binotto’s words it would seem that the updates to the F1-75 may have affected the center of pressure, an imaginary point of reference for the distribution of aerodynamic forces, prevalent at high speeds, increasingly discounting from the center of gravity, a reference for mechanical forces. -inertial. This would have become more complex for the Ferrari technicians compensate for different car behaviors, or rather not in tune, at high and low distances. At Monza the Maranello team carried out comparative tests with the version of the fund prior to the specification introduced in France, to collect useful data to find the balance and from there performance. Once again, Pierre Wache’s words are current: “You have to give up performance a little to get the correct balance”.
The more degrees of freedom are constrained, the more the set-up is “blocked” and the search for balance becomes complex. If weight distribution was one of these binding elements for Red Bull, one wonders if ground clearance is not true for Ferrari. The one on the Technical Directive 039 is a thorny issue, as well as a question mark for those who have to risk an interpretation from the outside. The TD039 has tightened controls on underbody wear, potentially forcing teams to raise the car’s height above the ground. The Federation intervened with full knowledge of the factsaware of the presence of irregular planks on some cars, as attested by the words of Nikolas Tombazis on the subject: “After the first races we saw that not all of them behaved in the same way and so it was necessary to homogenize this aspect”. It is therefore plausible that some cars have suffered more than others from the recent tightening of controls, with the doubt as to whether or not Ferrari is among the most affected teams, an issue on which there are conflicting opinions in the environment. The recent Scuderia test at Monza with the old fund, identified by the team as a possible cause of the Reds’ budget problems, would seem to give credence to Binotto’s words on a negligible impact of the directive, without however totally excluding it.
Regardless of the actual impact of the TD039 or not, after the summer break the Circus raced on tracks full of compression such as Spa and Zandvoort, where the crushing of the cars on the ground triggered by the steep slopes would have imposed a momentary increase in ground clearance even without the recent directive. Once again, increasing the distance from the ground is equivalent to reducing the margins of freedom for the suspension adjustment, returning once again to that “locked” set-up condition. The challenge for Ferrari between now and the end of the year is to get out of the vicious circle on a par with what was done with Red Bull, regaining balance, race performance and potentially a victory that would boost collective morale in view of 2023.
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