2023 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Vinlarr89]

Car looked better, but not sure how well it will go in race trim. Ferrari really need to push to bring updates to close the gap. Surprised they haven’t been more proactive this weekend with updates

[S D]

Ok so I may answer my question partially here... but:

If Ferrari is really as bad as everyone says they are AND there really is a new concept coming next year, why waste money on continuing to develop this year's car? I guess the windtunnel time being restricted has something to do with it but maybe they can start working on some basic ideas under this year's cap so they can get ahead?

Now if my question above is valid, and that's a big IF, then if they don't do that, does it indicate that they will simply stay with the same concept next year, given that they would hypothetically continue to develop the car the rest of the season?

Am I out to lunch?

Under this scenario Ferrari would declare 'uncle' and start on next years car which means that they would not challenge RB this year. So with Ferrari out for the count, MB having declared that they shifting gears as well, AM unable to challenge just yet, what stops RB from shifting to next year as well?

Sure, but is Red Bull really worried about Ferrari challenging them this year anyway? And whatever Red Bull learns this year, they will apply to next year's car as they are keeping their concept. If Ferrari continue developing this concept and abandoning it next year, it would seem to me, to be an inefficient use of restricted funds.

RB should always be worried about any top team regardless of being ahead currently. Precisely because of this they brought a new front wing and will continue to try to stay ahead.

It has not been determined if Ferrari are abandoning this concept. So yes, if they abandon this concept next year you are correct but if they are able to determine how to extract gains and that they can see a path to being competitive then they should stick with it.

Precisely due to all the speculation about why RB is so fast compared to everyone else indicates why no one really knows exactly what they are talking about. It's the suspension, no... it's the floor, no... it's the beam wing, it's the rear wing, the engine, the battery, the electronics, the pit wall, etc... personally I think it's the lucky rabbit's foot but I can't be sure.

Whether they will abandon the concept this year or next year is a 50-50 bet. Either they will or they won't. If they modify the bellies some will say it's just a refinement or an evolution, others will say they abandoned the concept.

Who is to say when a refinement becomes an evolution becomes a total redesign?

So if as you say, they change the concept right now, do they have sufficient funds to actually do this? If they make some bad decisions or if they run out of funding and end up last would this not be worse?

[mzso]

Don't agree with the mentality of moving to next year, every year. At once the team should maximize and learn to develop within the year and gain that experience to try and reduce the deficit. They can move on to next year, go to RB concept and yet find themselves 1 sec behind next year. Team has to come out of the nature of giving up and moving onto next year all the time

Yeah they should learn to deliver a new concept quicker.
And learn from it on track. Instead of getting surprised at the season start at their handicap all the time...

[mzso]

Oh come on, I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's see what they make of this season before we start saying treasonous things like hoping Charles leaves. That would be devastating for Ferrari. It's best not to think it.

They accomplished nothing with a decent advantage last year. And now they have a big gap... They're done...

I sooner see AM taking the fight to RB in some races.

[AR3-GP]

Oh come on, I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's see what they make of this season before we start saying treasonous things like hoping Charles leaves. That would be devastating for Ferrari. It's best not to think it.

They accomplished nothing with a decent advantage last year. And now they have a big gap... They're done...

I sooner see AM taking the fight to RB in some races.

They are still very close to Red Bull in qualifying which does suggest the raw pace of the car improved.

[mzso]

It was clear Binotto's departure will take a toll, but it wasn't clear just how toxic the influence of Vigna and Elkann is.

I imagined a new principal who's better able to wrangle.in shape the strategy department and race engineers. With Binotto maybe staying as technical lead.

Not quite how it happened.

[dialtone]

Big caveat:
I didn't watch FP3, I was out for dinner .

SAI v VER


These 2 times were set about 34 minutes apart, after yesterday's rain it's reasonable to expect the track to have become green and progressively became faster during FP3, there was 1C difference in track temp between these 2 laps. It is cold, 15C air temp.

* top speed advantage for VER, might be deployment related like in Jeddah, or might be Ferrari still in a lower engine mode than where RedBull is. Upshifts are where one would expect so neither driver was particularly fast/slow. It's definitely a higher engine mode than in FP1/FP2 as SAI is 5kph faster.
* T1 (all the time loss in S1 is here) and T6 (almost all the time loss in S2 is here) make a big difference.
* T9-10 are pretty bad for SAI here, could be heavier car or greener track or obviously could be SAI was on 9 lap old softs while VER was on 3 laps old. Overall T9-10 are faster for SAI than they were in FP2 on 4 lap old mediums.

Assuming engine mode is the same as RBR, seems like Ferrari is going to run more downforce which is going to make their backstraights a bit of a pain, aside from the 3 corners above, any corner past T10 is actually equivalent between SAI and VER.

Do I think the car will be on pole? Only if RBR can't find the setup. Can they win the race? realistically there's no historical data that would consider this a possibility and there's no real race sims here to tell.

ALO v SAI


Time loss is again in T1, T6 and T9-10, 5 lap old (ALO) vs 9 lap old (SAI) softs.

Due to how decent the car is in S3 I struggle to believe that there's a lack of downforce in T1 and T9-10 or T6 so my optimism goes towards Ferrari having a decent chance at podium this weekend.

[jambuka]

Big caveat:
I didn't watch FP3, I was out for dinner .

SAI v VER
https://i.imgur.com/A8JM5mw.jpeg

These 2 times were set about 34 minutes apart, after yesterday's rain it's reasonable to expect the track to have become green and progressively became faster during FP3, there was 1C difference in track temp between these 2 laps. It is cold, 15C air temp.

* top speed advantage for VER, might be deployment related like in Jeddah, or might be Ferrari still in a lower engine mode than where RedBull is. Upshifts are where one would expect so neither driver was particularly fast/slow. It's definitely a higher engine mode than in FP1/FP2 as SAI is 5kph faster.
* T1 (all the time loss in S1 is here) and T6 (almost all the time loss in S2 is here) make a big difference.
* T9-10 are pretty bad for SAI here, could be heavier car or greener track or obviously could be SAI was on 9 lap old softs while VER was on 3 laps old. Overall T9-10 are faster for SAI than they were in FP2 on 4 lap old mediums.

Assuming engine mode is the same as RBR, seems like Ferrari is going to run more downforce which is going to make their backstraights a bit of a pain, aside from the 3 corners above, any corner past T10 is actually equivalent between SAI and VER.

Do I think the car will be on pole? Only if RBR can't find the setup. Can they win the race? realistically there's no historical data that would consider this a possibility and there's no real race sims here to tell.

ALO v SAI
https://i.imgur.com/Ioj2x98.jpeg

Time loss is again in T1, T6 and T9-10, 5 lap old (ALO) vs 9 lap old (SAI) softs.

Due to how decent the car is in S3 I struggle to believe that there's a lack of downforce in T1 and T9-10 or T6 so my optimism goes towards Ferrari having a decent chance at podium this weekend.

How do the long runs look like ?

[organic]

-snip-

How do the long runs look like ?

Better than Bahrain/Saudi

[AR3-GP]

Top speed it not too bad either. I would think Ferrari will go to 324 when they turn the engine up. They tend to be conservative as there are reliability concerns.

[dialtone]

Looking at the best laps in those race sims it looks like LEC still has to manage traction a bit, but it could also be ALO taking a bit more out of his tires since it was the last lap of his sim.

ALO v LEC best laps in race sim FP3:


I don't have commentary for this one, I would have really needed to look a FP3.

[JPBD1990]

Welp. Hopefully race pace shows an improvement otherwise we are officially rudderless.

[LM10]

Not what I expected. Not what any of us expected.

[CaribouBread]

I think, in my opinion, the performance this session warrants some pessimism.

[jambuka]

Well that was interesting. Hopefully they have setup the car for race pace otherwise we are f*ckd.