This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Ferrari SF-23, the car is a disappointment. Red Bull is far ahead. Race pace of SF-23 is dissaster, tyre wear is massive. Set up of the car is a mess, car looks unstabile. Aero of the car looks and is very simple and underdevelopt compared to Red Bull.
We can forget any title in 23, sorry all but this is a fact. Sorry all…
Formu1a.uno, Leclerc and Vasseur:
"However, the SF-23 has shown that it is not yet at the level of the RB19 , as also confirmed by Leclerc, who came out into the open on this last day of testing. “We still have a lot of work to do with the SF-23. Red Bull looks very strong and seems to be ahead of us."
“ We have changed the philosophy of the car. I think we have been working in the right direction and we will go faster on the straights this year, which was one of our weaknesses last season, but I expect to struggle a bit more in the corners.” – said a Charles Leclerc not fully satisfied with these three days of testing.
“ The SF-23 is a different car , you have to drive it differently. I've tried different riding styles and I'm finding the right way but there's still work to do”. Leclerc relies on the unexpressed potential of the new Italian car, and on which the team will work next week, both in terms of data analysis and in the Simulator. “ I believe and hope there is room for growth for the SF-23 once it has found the ideal setup, which we haven't found yet in these three days”.
The car has changed, in line with our expectations, but we still have to find the right setup for these new features .” concluded Leclerc. However, it should be emphasized that today, due to a structural failure, Ferrari was unable to test the new rear wingwhich guarantees a greater load, very useful especially with the C3 compound...
It is important to underline that during the race weekend, the most important sessions will be run with much lower asphalt temperatures, this will help Ferrari to a certain extent. “The tests in Bahrain are quite strange as we race all day with 45°C on the track, while in qualifying and in the race next week it will be 25°C.” – said Fred Vasseur – “ We will have a totally different track that could tell a completely different story. In these tests it wasn't important to express yourself at high speed but to understand the car, and in this sense we did a good job."
Keeping in mind the statement from Vasseur we have to wait for the first race to have the real picture how bad/good the car is.
* LEC last stint on softs looks pretty good actually
* SAI race sim looks good too in terms of deg, especially that second stint on mediums
Hard to understand if Ferrari botched the car honestly, they had the wrong wing on but even then the tire deg doesn't look that bad in those last few stints.
Agreed.
Nothing suggests to me that the SF-23 has some incurable fatal flaw.
The only thing we don’t know is how a setup optimized for Bahrain will look vs Red Bull/Merc.
Still did not understand why would they not run with high DW wing before in this testing. Now it seems to me they are not really sure if the high DW wing will solve deg/handling problems before next week. I understand they were not doing track specific running, but after covering distance equivalent o 5 GP, they should know the answer and not hope.
To all those who’re overreacting and interpreting too much into testing: please calm down.
I don’t see a single reason for being upset about anything. Ferrari have shown a decent performance.
Why are Charles’ comments about the SF-23 behaving differently than the F1-75 a negative sign? Of course the car will feel different as there has been a huge change to the car overall even though it might not seem like that at first sight. It’s surely been a bigger evolution than on the RB19. And there you already have the answer for a.) the different behavior of the car and b.) the search for the optimal setups from Ferrari. The RB19 is the car with the most carryover from it’s predecessor. That’s why they’ve had an already balanced and sorted out car. Others need to find that sweet spot yet - as Charles told for themselves too. That’s not a negative thing, it’s simply normal. Also take in consideration that the Ferrari has had the least amount of rear- and beam-wing from all. Obviously setting the car up not only for Bahrain, but other tracks and conditions too.
I’m sure come race weekend they’ll be there or thereabouts and if not yet, the season is long and there is room for big improvements.
The only thing that make me doubt is how the car can face the corners. In this test i saw a nervous car, and it remind me what happened last year, before TD039
I haven't seen a lot of the test.
But the feeling is negative, mainly from CL's commnets and the videos I saw were Ferrari was extremely nervous (compared to last year).
Let's see
To all those who’re overreacting and interpreting too much into testing: please calm down.
I don’t see a single reason for being upset about anything. Ferrari have shown a decent performance.
Why are Charles’ comments about the SF-23 behaving differently than the F1-75 a negative sign? Of course the car will feel different as there has been a huge change to the car overall even though it might not seem like that at first sight. It’s surely been a bigger evolution than on the RB19. And there you already have the answer for a.) the different behavior of the car and b.) the search for the optimal setups from Ferrari. The RB19 is the car with the most carryover from it’s predecessor. That’s why they’ve had an already balanced and sorted out car. Others need to find that sweet spot yet - as Charles told for themselves too. That’s not a negative thing, it’s simply normal. Also take in consideration that the Ferrari has had the least amount of rear- and beam-wing from all. Obviously setting the car up not only for Bahrain, but other tracks and conditions too.
I’m sure come race weekend they’ll be there or thereabouts and if not yet, the season is long and there is room for big improvements.
The tyre deg was much worse than RB and arguably worse than Merc. Certainly worse than Aston. Now maybe this has to do with downforce levels but equally there is no guarantee that tyre deg will improve to the level of their competitors just because you bolt on a bigger wing. Don't forget the RB had better tyre deg towards the end of last season too, so this isn't a new problem for Ferrari. And testing certainly hasn't convinced me they've gotten on top of that yet.
I'm not worried about their engine, or their downforce, or drag, but controlling deg is probably more important than all of those.
Initially looking at some of the long runs from SF23, I’m getting Mercedes W04 vibes - Great 1 lap peace, before destroying its tyres 5 laps into a stint… some of the running on the final day looked a bit better, though nowhere near as strong and consistent as Red Bull.
Heck, Alonso’s long run in the Aston on C1’s in the 37’s was more impressive than the majority of long runs Ferrari managed…
Barring any breakthroughs next week, Ferrari might be in with a genuine shot of Pole, though as with last year, Red Bull will monster them in the race. If anything, Ferrari will have to worry more about Mercedes (maybe Aston?) come season start… I don’t think Merc’s issues are as big as they’re making out and the pace of the Aston in Alonso’s hands is a definite dark horse for an upset…
Initially looking at some of the long runs from SF23, I’m getting Mercedes W04 vibes - Great 1 lap peace, before destroying its tyres 5 laps into a stint… some of the running on the final day looked a bit better, though nowhere near as strong and consistent as Red Bull.
Heck, Alonso’s long run in the Aston on C1’s in the 37’s was more impressive than the majority of long runs Ferrari managed…
Barring any breakthroughs next week, Ferrari might be in with a genuine shot of Pole, though as with last year, Red Bull will monster them in the race. If anything, Ferrari will have to worry more about Mercedes (maybe Aston?) come season start… I don’t think Merc’s issues are as big as they’re making out and the pace of the Aston in Alonso’s hands is a definite dark horse for an upset…
Sainz was easily into the 36’s in his last stint on C1’s and it didn’t look like there were any signs it would change had the stint continued.
In none of the Day 3 long runs Dialtone posted did the car “destroy” its tires in 5 laps. Not only that we know from Duchessa that the car was setup for race time temps, not the midday and evening conditions of testing.
I think you’re jumping the gun here. That’s not to say the runs matched Red Bulls but they weren’t anything like the W04.
Last edited by JPower on 25 Feb 2023, 23:55, edited 1 time in total.
