What is Ferrari working on to close the gap?

In Melbourne, the Ferrari team earned no points, although Carlos Sainz finished fourth on track, but a 5-second penalty he received dropped him back to 12th. And Charles Leclerc already retired on the first lap due to a racing incident. Since the Scuderia decided to try to protest the fine, the result of the Australian Grand Prix is ​​still considered unofficial, but the weekend at Albert Park can certainly not be called a success.

Naturally, the unusually long four-week break separating the third stage of the season from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix will see Maranello trying to make the most of the car’s modernisation. But first, Ferrari must decide what exactly is wrong with the SF-23 and what needs to be addressed first.

In Bahrain, in the first phase of the season, the Scuderia had problems with its rear wing, so the team had to use compromise settings there, with the result that the car’s behavior was far from ideal. In Jeddah it was confirmed that the SF-23 is not only behind the Red Bull Racing car, but also Aston Martin and Mercedes within the race distance. Some progress has been made in Australia by adjusting the settings, but the Ferrari car is still only fourth fastest.

Carlos Sainz spoke very clearly about this: “Now Red Bull’s superiority is reflected in everything. After adjusting the technical regulations, the car became a bit slower and we thought that was normal, and the car started to behave a bit more nervous.

We felt we had taken the right measures to compensate, that we had set ourselves the right targets and that we were able to get a good pace.

When we got to the tests we immediately realized that the changes in the regulations had no effect on the rivals and they are going much faster than last year. Then I had to think: maybe we did something wrong.

The team from Maranello has changed management, the former team principal has been fired and Ferrari has given up the services of David Sanchez, chief aerodynamic specialist, and the team as a whole is going through a period of restructuring.

The situation they found themselves in at the start of the season is different from Mercedes: Brackley admitted they had bet on a wrong concept, so work has been going on in the wind tunnel since February on the B version of the chassis. But Ferrari is still only investigating the causes of the speed deficit, which arose after the underbody of the car had to be renewed in accordance with the requirements of the 2023 technical regulation.

According to The Race, the SF-23 has many problem areas, but first of all, Maranello tries to make sure the underside of the car works effectively with a wider range of mechanical settings. Compared to the RB19, the Ferrari clearly lacks downforce, while the Red Bull Racing car not only has an advantage in top speed with open DRS, but also handles corners better than the SF-23.

Scuderia brought a new version of the bottom to Jeddah, after which it was also used in Melbourne, and some further improvements were made. It was seen that the edges of the modernized floor have been given a slightly different shape, and the geometry of the part in front of the rear wheels has also changed. Larger changes, however, are not visible from the side and are located below the bottom. More precisely, under the edges.

Maranello is working quickly on the next batch of updates, and according to team boss Frédéric Vasseur, these will be spread over several stages from Baku to Barcelona. Perhaps some of them will even appear on the car in advance.

Before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari will try to lower the drag coefficient of the SF-23, this is required by the characteristics of the Baku circuit with its straight line, which is more than a kilometer long. Most likely for this race the team will make a rear wing with a lower angle of attack and the main plane will be horizontal, as in 2022, and not “spoon shaped”.

In any case, the updates that the team is working on and plans to present in Baku and in the next stages indicate that the SF-23 concept will not undergo any radical changes for the time being.

In Imola and Barcelona, ​​i.e. towards the end of May and early June (before and after Monaco), the Scuderia plans to make further modifications to the bottom end, more important than those on the red cars in Australia.

Another weak point of the SF-23 is the suspension. Red Bull has relied on its design, which allows you to maintain a constant ride height when adjusting the mechanical settings and the bottom always works in optimal mode.

In the case of Ferrari, it is difficult to predict that the team will be able to make significant progress in this area, as suspension modernization usually requires major design changes.

However, a new rear suspension variant is being prepared for Barcelona at Maranello, with the upper wishbones given a slightly different profile, allowing for a different effect on airflow in this part of the car. But these too cannot be called revolutionary transformations.

In qualifying, Ferrari and Mercedes are much closer to Red Bull than they are to the Grand Prix, where the RB19’s advantage comes into its own – probably more than a second per lap. In qualifying mode, the lack of downforce is partly compensated by the more effective grip that soft tires provide. However, Red Bull has deliberately developed a car that must be fast in the race.

In this regard, the Ferrari F1-75 was also inferior to last year’s Red Bull car – if Maranello expects to overtake rivals and enter into a dispute with them for victories, then they need to solve this complex problem as soon as possible.