Mark Hughes on the shortcomings of the Ferrari SF-23 chassis

Ferrari had high expectations before the start of the last season based on the 2022 results, but it became clear during the winter tests that this hope was not destined to come true, because Red Bull Racing had progressed much further.

Compared to the Red Bull RB19, the new SF23, built in Maranello, was clearly less efficient. Although this allowed Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to battle for pole position on Saturday, the Scuderia drivers won qualifying six times and the Spaniard even managed to win in Singapore, the SF23 was far inferior in capability to its rivals’ technology.

According to Mark Hughes, an expert from The Race, Ferrari, like other teams in the championship, did not realize in time the potential of the Red Bull chassis, which overall turned out to be almost ideal thanks to a well-developed aerodynamic design. platform in combination with the original suspension.

Maranello has further developed the concept, which is based on side pontoons with a fairly massive front section, because this concept has proven itself well in the first half of 2022. But then Ferrari was forced to reduce the power of its power plants due to a problem with the hybrid part, more precisely with the MGU-H engine generator, which could not be solved during the season.

Apparently, the Scuderia then decided that it was enough to once again make full use of the power of the power plant and slightly modernize the chassis, and this alone would make it possible in 2023 to reach the level at which the team was before the stage in Baku. , where Charles Leclerc again won qualifying, but none of the Ferrari cars made it to the finish.

At the same time, the Italian team clearly underestimated Red Bull’s ability to develop the ideas embedded in their car, and they had to pay for this short-sightedness last season.

The concept behind the Ferrari chassis was that aerodynamic elements at the front and center of the car actively deflected turbulence behind the front wheels, but it turned out that this did not direct enough air to the underside of the car and its edges. these elements responsible for creating the ground effect.

This allowed the car to behave unpredictably at high speeds; the behavior of the rear was overly nervous, which manifested itself in fast cornering. Especially in crosswinds.

“This was due to the way the aerodynamic bodywork works,” said The Race Enrico Cardile, Ferrari technical director. – When the car changes direction, the down force in principle decreases anyway, this is due to the influence of the turbulence zone created by the tires.

The problem is: how big will such losses be? They grow larger when exposed to wind. All this affects the confidence level of the drivers, which depends on how nervous the car behaves…

The 2022 chassis was created according to a specific concept, and the shape of the car’s body was simply a consequence of what we were trying to achieve. The 2023 car was a modernized version of its predecessor, where we tried to eliminate some of the weaknesses of the previous car.

We achieved our goal in the sense that the car behaved on the track exactly as we planned and as the calculations promised. But soon, during the first pre-season tests, we realized that the direction we had chosen was not the most promising.”

Thanks to the improved aerodynamic body kit, the efficiency of the chassis has increased in medium-speed corners and the car has become faster on the straights. But this was clearly not enough to compete on an equal footing with Red Bull in 2023.

“The main difference between our car and the Red Bull-style cars is the shape of the sidepod area under the radiator intakes,” Cardile continued. – Our pontoon design is different. Ours is thicker and we use this part of the body to increase the air pressure in front of the sidepods – this allows us to better control the effect of the turbulence created by the front tires…

At the same time, we tried to achieve greater efficiency thanks to the shape of the surface of the front part of the pontoons…”

The SF-23 received its first major series of updates in Barcelona. The sidepods became narrower and longer as Ferrari tried to ensure that the part of the airflow deflected to the sides had less impact on reducing the efficiency of the overall aerodynamic body kit.

However, the car continued to behave quite erratically. Even Leclerc, although he prefers a balance that leans towards a bit of oversteer, felt he couldn’t tackle the fast corners the way he wanted.

In Maranello they continued to refine the car, but its behavior depended on the configuration of a particular circuit. The SF-23 was quite fast in qualifying, but even Mercedes often lost in the races, because the tires on the Ferrari car worked less efficiently.

The Scuderia continued to study and experiment with the chassis characteristics and gradually eliminated some of the car’s weaknesses, including Sainz asking for certain adjustments to be made to the settings of its SF-23, making its behavior less unpredictable. Partly because of this, he managed to win qualifications in Monza and Singapore and take the race to victory on a difficult city circuit.

For the Suzuka stage, Ferrari prepared the latest set of updates: the car received a new, more efficient underbody, which allowed to partially eliminate the car’s shortcomings. Leclerc felt his former confidence behind the wheel and eventually even claimed victory in Las Vegas, but finished second there.

The Scuderia fought with Mercedes for 2nd place in the Constructors’ Championship until the final laps of the season finale, but still lost. As the season progressed, the Italian team still made mistakes in their work, but these were not as significant as in previous years. However, the main factor affecting Ferrari’s 2023 results was still chassis faults.

But Cardile promised that things will be different in 2024.

“Next year we will turn the page,” he said.