Ferrari SF-24 speculation

[Andi76]

Any chance Rory Byrne is really back designing the car or are these articles total BS. ?

Rory being in Maranello is quite unusual. It could mean one of two things - either he had a major influence on the car and is now there to help with the finishing touches, or Ferrari are having problems and need his help, although I think the latter is less likely as they seem to be happy with the simulations. You have to look at the reality though - Rory didn't lead the design of the new car and he only worked on it part time. So the dream of a car designed by "Rory Byrne" is not something you should have. The maximum is a car with some of Rory Byrne's influences and concepts, like 2017 or 2022, and he will certainly return to Thailand once the work is complete. However, if Vasseur is smart, he will offer Rory to stay and overlook the design of the 2025 car. It would be even cleverer to involve Rory for the big rule change in 2026, but these cars can only be officially worked on from 1.1.25. But his genius would be an incredible help here. He won't say no, even if he doesn't actually want to or aspire to. But since you're not allowed to work on these cars until 2025, however you want to control that, you have to assume that Rory is there for other reasons and in relation to the current car. We'll see how much influence he has in the end, but he has definitely only worked on it and helped out on an hourly basis. It won't be a Rory Byrne design.

[deadhead]

Any chance Rory Byrne is really back designing the car or are these articles total BS. ?

Rory being in Maranello is quite unusual. It could mean one of two things - either he had a major influence on the car and is now there to help with the finishing touches, or Ferrari are having problems and need his help, although I think the latter is less likely as they seem to be happy with the simulations. You have to look at the reality though - Rory didn't lead the design of the new car and he only worked on it part time. So the dream of a car designed by "Rory Byrne" is not something you should have. The maximum is a car with some of Rory Byrne's influences and concepts, like 2017 or 2022, and he will certainly return to Thailand once the work is complete. However, if Vasseur is smart, he will offer Rory to stay and overlook the design of the 2025 car. It would be even cleverer to involve Rory for the big rule change in 2026, but these cars can only be officially worked on from 1.1.25. But his genius would be an incredible help here. He won't say no, even if he doesn't actually want to or aspire to. But since you're not allowed to work on these cars until 2025, however you want to control that, you have to assume that Rory is there for other reasons and in relation to the current car. We'll see how much influence he has in the end, but he has definitely only worked on it and helped out on an hourly basis. It won't be a Rory Byrne design.

I did find it interesting that this time around the rumor is that he was in fact at the factory where the usual (annual) story is that he was involved, remotely, in some vague way..

[Andi76]

Any chance Rory Byrne is really back designing the car or are these articles total BS. ?

Rory being in Maranello is quite unusual. It could mean one of two things - either he had a major influence on the car and is now there to help with the finishing touches, or Ferrari are having problems and need his help, although I think the latter is less likely as they seem to be happy with the simulations. You have to look at the reality though - Rory didn't lead the design of the new car and he only worked on it part time. So the dream of a car designed by "Rory Byrne" is not something you should have. The maximum is a car with some of Rory Byrne's influences and concepts, like 2017 or 2022, and he will certainly return to Thailand once the work is complete. However, if Vasseur is smart, he will offer Rory to stay and overlook the design of the 2025 car. It would be even cleverer to involve Rory for the big rule change in 2026, but these cars can only be officially worked on from 1.1.25. But his genius would be an incredible help here. He won't say no, even if he doesn't actually want to or aspire to. But since you're not allowed to work on these cars until 2025, however you want to control that, you have to assume that Rory is there for other reasons and in relation to the current car. We'll see how much influence he has in the end, but he has definitely only worked on it and helped out on an hourly basis. It won't be a Rory Byrne design.

I did find it interesting that this time around the rumor is that he was in fact at the factory where the usual (annual) story is that he was involved, remotely, in some vague way..

It's not just a rumor, it's a fact. But we can only speculate about the purpose and everything else.

[f1316]

It is interesting that, if rumours are to be believed, Ferrari’s arguably two most successful recent designs (if you consider 2018 a direct influence from 2017) are the ones that had the most participation from Rory Byrne. At the same time - again if we’re to believe the general narrative - Newey had more direct involvement in the 22/23 Red Bulls than he has in a while , and the cars were more successful.

Why is that interesting? It makes me wonder how much, for all the additional tools that current F1 aerodynamicists have at their disposal, there’s still no substitute for experience. Indeed, you wonder if these tools almost remove folks’ need to develop and refine their “instinct” (for want of a better word) and so modern aerodynamicists aren’t able to reach the level of their counterparts from bygone eras because they’ve never been forced to take the same learnings without the assistance of such refined technical tools?

Perhaps it’s more a question of these two just being two of the all-time greats - and so more the exception than the rule - and you could argue that Mercedes recent dominance was built without any such figure, but it’s a interesting to me how much two of the top F1 teams seem to rely so much on a couple of fairly old men.

[FDD]

Rory being in Maranello is quite unusual. It could mean one of two things - either he had a major influence on the car and is now there to help with the finishing touches, or Ferrari are having problems and need his help, although I think the latter is less likely as they seem to be happy with the simulations. You have to look at the reality though - Rory didn't lead the design of the new car and he only worked on it part time. So the dream of a car designed by "Rory Byrne" is not something you should have. The maximum is a car with some of Rory Byrne's influences and concepts, like 2017 or 2022, and he will certainly return to Thailand once the work is complete. However, if Vasseur is smart, he will offer Rory to stay and overlook the design of the 2025 car. It would be even cleverer to involve Rory for the big rule change in 2026, but these cars can only be officially worked on from 1.1.25. But his genius would be an incredible help here. He won't say no, even if he doesn't actually want to or aspire to. But since you're not allowed to work on these cars until 2025, however you want to control that, you have to assume that Rory is there for other reasons and in relation to the current car. We'll see how much influence he has in the end, but he has definitely only worked on it and helped out on an hourly basis. It won't be a Rory Byrne design.

I did find it interesting that this time around the rumor is that he was in fact at the factory where the usual (annual) story is that he was involved, remotely, in some vague way..

It's not just a rumor, it's a fact. But we can only speculate about the purpose and everything else.

Yes it's a fact.
RB is involved in the 2024 car but we don't how deep.
Also, as you said it would be extremally clever RB to be involved in 2026 rules chaneg.

[Vanja #66]

Why is that interesting? It makes me wonder how much, for all the additional tools that current F1 aerodynamicists have at their disposal, there’s still no substitute for experience. Indeed, you wonder if these tools almost remove folks’ need to develop and refine their “instinct” (for want of a better word) and so modern aerodynamicists aren’t able to reach the level of their counterparts from bygone eras because they’ve never been forced to take the same learnings without the assistance of such refined technical tools?

Perhaps it’s more a question of these two just being two of the all-time greats - and so more the exception than the rule - and you could argue that Mercedes recent dominance was built without any such figure, but it’s a interesting to me how much two of the top F1 teams seem to rely so much on a couple of fairly old men.

The thing with the two of them, they are both engineers who are deeply intuitive when it comes to race car dynamics. So not just aero, suspension, engine, etc, but how the whole car works and breathes as a living thing. Andi76 said once "Rory knew how a scraped left corner on the front wing would affect right rear wheel nut" and that's not really a big exaggeration

I am completely sure all the teams have aero departments that can individually design monstrous aerodynamics if it has to work only at one single ride height, suspension departments that can design the system to drive a soft tyre for a full race distance, mechanical department that can design lightweight and bulletproof gearboxes that last a full season, etc... However, everything needs to mix well and work together as a single unified system at all times and that bit is really, really challenging. With these cars, making the aero work well requires a suspension system that is designed fully around the aero map. This is the case for a long time, but since 2022 is more important than ever. All teams understand this, but tiny details and tricks of the trade can and do make huge differences.

[gordonthegun]

Going back to talk about the car itself, it seems certain that Ferrari will reduce the size of the gearbox to allow a better air flow in the diffuser.

When I heard about this my mind went to the 2016 season , when, again, in order to lighten and miniaturize the gearbox, it became too weak and broke several times during the season due to micro torsions.
Let's hope Ferrari has learned the lesson.

[Xyz22]

Rory is "employed" as a consultant right now, correct? If he has been in Maranello that is potentially great news.

[organic]

The front end will evolve to resemble rb19 more closely especially the wing profile. But still retains some of the current look. More anti-dive in front suspension and a revised layout.

[gordonthegun]

The front end will evolve to resemble rb19 more closely especially the wing profile. But still retains some of the current look. More anti-dive in front suspension and a revised layout.

The tweet says also that the Haas B version (appeared in COTA) has changed (besides the sidepods) the front wing with a design more similar to the one of Red Bull.
This corroborates my belief that the Haas changes were agreed with Ferrari to begin collecting useful data for the 2024 car already during the end of 2023 season.

[organic]

They're not saying it will copy the rb19. The front wing rules are very prescriptive and there's a minimum amount of downforce you need to get with the front wing to balance the rear, and RB have a design that seems to be effective. It is reasonable that Ferrari can take inspiration from rb's approach here for their 2024 car.

You wouldn't say McLaren copied the extreme waterslide from amr, or RB didn't copy its Barcelona diffuser design from others, or Ferrari its single element beamwing design from RB?

The 2022- cars are more sensitive and it makes copying elements from other cars less feasible, but it undoubtedly has happened and continues to. And the article doesn't even go that far: they just use the rb19 as a reference point to describe how the car will look. That A ends up resembling B doesn't mean A was copying B; the designers of A can go through the optimization process and arrive at the same answers as the designers of B resulting in similar components.

I don't have any eggs in any basket. But I don't think it's fair to dismiss this article on that basis. A lot of formu1a.uno's reporting on the SF23 seems to be accurate with the benefit of hindsight. That the car didn't perform as Ferrari had expected made the reporting look less solid at the time

[gordonthegun]

Today is the day of guessing about 2024 Ferrari front wing :

[FDD]

According to A. Aimar 30 points of additional downforce is 0,3% gain, "I pray to God that they did not find 30 points plus cause we'll have the same 2023 season for Ferrari".
PS If we believe that info of 30 points more aero load is true info, which is very stupid to believe in.

[K1Plus]

As per the front wing concept and in the Formu1a Uno article,
it was said that David Sanchez was the scapegoat for the car that Cardile has been trying to fix and he's been the one who was saying that they should go ahead with the inwash concept.

I think the SF24 will undoubtedly take inspiration from Red Bull and try to aim for consistent instead of peak downforce, but with their own twist on it. Ferrari are masters at aero innovation, the inwash worked well first half of 22 and was quick, and the 2017 car, the SF70H, was the one all others were inspired by in that period of 2017 and 18.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

According to A. Aimar 30 points of additional downforce is 0,3% gain, "I pray to God that they did not find 30 points plus cause we'll have the same 2023 season for Ferrari".
PS If we believe that info of 30 points more aero load is true info, which is very stupid to believe in.

Is not like that
A point is Formula One code for a hundredth of a fraction of ‘cl’, where ‘cl’ is the downforce coefficient. 30 points would be 30 hundredths which would equate to 0.3. So 30 points might be getting on for 10 percent of the downforce on an F1 car and that could be worth about a second a lap. But is also can be misleading due
delta-downforce/delta-laptime relationship. Anyway it is different number for every team , in Ferrari each 4 point = 0.1 sec , in McLaren each 5 point = 0.1 sec . So we talking about 0.7 sec . Is can be true because at Aston they talking 1 second "Quantum jump".