En Ferrari tried to make the new SF-23 a bit more similar to Red Bull from last year in terms of philosophy. one of his greats The F1-75’s shortcomings were the circuits with long straights, where the RB18, with the DRS He opened the hunted and easily surpassed, as happened in Arabia, where Verstappen sufficiently beat Leclerc for this reason alone.
For this reason, in the SF-23 they have sought to dig the pontoons with a lower channel next to the ground, in the style of its rivals, offering a smaller body surface to the wind and have placed less bulky rear wings to reduce that ‘drag’ which is how the general resistance to advance offered by a competition single-seater is defined.
Charles Leclerc He acknowledged at a press conference the change in philosophy in the car, following completing his three days of pre-season testing, where he left with the best time in the morning, with the sun beating down on the track.
“Yes, it has been changed. I won’t go into too much detail, but I think it has been done in the right way and I think we have a less drag car so it should be better this year. Other features have also changed… Everything in line with what we expected, but we still have to find the right configuration for these new features,” he detailed. Carlos Sainz’s partner regarding the new machine from Maranello.
very oversteering
Apparently, the car improved that Saturday morning, when Leclerc rehearsed (albeit with plenty of gasoline) qualifying laps. The fact of having an engine with a very aggressive map, made it much better than previous days and it didn’t appear so much anymore oversteer in the car, which refused to turn smoothly, perhaps because of that deficit in passing through a fast curve.
Has it lost its efficiency in winding areas by having lightened that global resistance to the advance of the car? It is possible, although having changed the style it will take time for them to find the best settings for the new car. by cons Red Bull, continues with an evolution on a well-known car and stable, so it hasn’t had any problems rolling on rails since the start of the tests.
Faster on straights
Leclerc added that he hopes that “let’s be a little faster on the straights, maybe fighting a little more in the corners.” At this point it must be stressed that the degradation of the new car, due to that extra slip in the tacked areas, is greater. for now, eats up the wheels more than Red Bull, Aston Martin and maybe Mercedes.
Despite the pessimism that MARCA was able to capture in the Italian press at the end of the tests, who they think Ferrari is regarding four tenths of a second behind Red Bull, even in Qualifying, there may be hope for Ferrari. “With this three-day test, I can say that We are still working quite a bit on the track to find the sweet spot for the car in terms of set-up. I hope there’s still some leeway, that we haven’t found the sweet spot yet.” wants Carlos Sainz’s partner.
The calendar can reward them
On the side of hope In the current F1 calendar, the speed circuits have prevailed for a few years now, with great straights and what is not seen in Bahrain might benefit them in the second race in Jeddah, and in many others of the calendar. Baku, Canada, Spa, Monza, Mexico and many others can be good for Ferrari this season. This hasn’t even started, so nothing is won or lost yet beforehand.
