“In Barcelona we could have a package that will be important for us”. So Mattia Binotto had expressed himself in the post-race in Miami, anticipating some news for the Red team on the occasion of the Spanish trip. Team Principal’s promises have been kept, with the F1-75 benefiting from the first aerodynamic upgrades after being unaffected from the opening race in Bahrain. The Scuderia di Maranello has preferred to plan the development in such a way as to introduce a substantial package of updates to the sixth race of the season, so as to have more time to set up the design of the new package with an overview, an approach that the technicians of the Cavallino hope it will be more profitable than that of its rivals, as well as more financially efficient, an aspect that should not be underestimated in terms of the budget cap. Red Bull, on the other hand, has split its development from the start of the championship, introducing small innovations from race to race that in the last two rounds of Imola and Miami had helped to put the RB18 ahead of the F1-75, necessitating a prompt response from Ferrari.
In Emilia-Romagna and Florida the Rossa was not inferior to Red Bull in terms of absolute performance, as confirmed by the monopolized front row at the Hard Rock Stadium. The F1-75, on the other hand, suffered in terms of tire management when fully loaded with fuel, especially at the front and with the softer compounds. In Miami Charles Leclerc suffered from the excessive wear of the front end suffered in the first stint on medium tires, while in the second half of the race with hard tires the pace of the Monegasque was perfectly in line with that of the reigning champion. One of the priorities in development for Ferrari is therefore to improve tire management by acting on the mechanical-aerodynamic balance, an operation strictly connected to the need to increase the generation of load from the bottom.
So far Ferrari has been one of the single-seaters, together with Haas and Mercedes, to suffer most from porpoising, the now well-known phenomenon of aerodynamic rebound at high speeds. The Scuderia di Maranello had tried different versions of the bottom of the car during the second pre-season test session in Bahrain, improving the porpoising control without however achieving the same mastery shown instead by Red Bull and Alfa Romeo for example. This prevented Ferrari from setting the F1-75’s optimum ground heights and stiffnesses, limiting bottom load generation whose deficiency was offset by the use of heavier rear wings than Red Bull, while serving a large speed delay on the straight from the RB18. The updates developed in Maranello in view of the Barcelona race therefore go in the direction of a further step forward in porpoising control, so as to increase the generation of load from the bottom to improve the management of the front tires in the race and at the same time regain speed on the straight. through the adoption of lower load wing configurations.
The evolution package for Spain is the result of an organic study of the rear as a whole, with the new features concentrated at the rear and designed to work in synergy with each other. The diffuser is new, with the narrow central ramp which thus widens the two outlet sections of the lateral Venturi channels. It is a version similar to the one already tested in free practice for the Australian Grand Prix.
The new diffuser works in symbiosis with the new rear brake air intakes, not specific to the Catalan track and designed to be used throughout the season. In addition to seeking a greater generation of load directly on the wheel unit, particularly useful as it acts on the unsprung masses downstream of the suspension, the interventions act in an extremely critical area. The profiles in fact influence the flow trend, the vortices and the pressure field in the lateral-lower area of the diffuser, with effects on its efficiency and therefore on the generation of load from the underbody.
The bottom of the F1-75 has been simplified compared to the version at the beginning of the championship, which progressively evolved during the tests in Bahrain up to the configuration with the longitudinal notch immediately in front of the return in front of the rear wheel. In the Barcelona specification, the fund is closed and continuous in the same area, a simplification intervention that at first glance could disappoint the expectations of the supporters of the Red team, eager to see more striking changes, but which in reality could let some positive signals leak out. . The previous notch was in fact a blow molding to give vent to the flows in the underbody, a configuration designed as a buffer solution to porpoising, but which by reducing the usable surface limited the generation of load from the bottom. It is therefore possible that the interventions on the diffuser and in general on the rear aerodynamics seen in Barcelona are able to guarantee better control of the aerodynamic rebound, allowing you to return to a cleaner bottom configuration and useful for generating load.
The Barcelona evolution package closes with a new maximum load rear wing, characterized by a straight upper profile to make the most of drag reduction during DRS activation. For the Scuderia di Maranello, however, the most important work is now starting: validating the innovations during free practice sessions to ensure that the behavior observed on the track corresponds to what was expected during the simulation phase.
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