Ferrari SF-24

[dialtone]

So, let me reformulate my question. Which are the technical advantages of a thin top intake chosen by Ferrari engineers?
Are there any relations with a bigger top intake and thinner car sides?
Thank you for your patience with a novice.

More and cleaner air to rear wing and lower CoG of the car by a few cm.

[DoctorRadio]

Somethings that were noticed by myself and @organicmeasure

The deep recess underneath the floor stay, might have been discussed here not sure. It's purpose far outside of my technical know-how.

Second thing, the pink lines show the diffuser expansion, or so I think, which seems to start incredibly early, almost mid floor. Far earlier than other team I've compared to.


https://ibb.co/8XH30Zk


Here's AMR24 for comparison.


https://imgbb.com/

What would they be aiming with that diffuser different from the others?

[hollus]

It is that time of the year...

.. so here is again the gentle reminder:

Posts talking about gained tenths have been deleted or will be shortly. The posters got (get) the text back, you are welcome to post them in the team thread.
As usual every year at this time:
a) Welcome to all the newbies!
b) No lap times, no track or championship position, no winning and losing in the car threads. Only hardware here, winning and losing goes in the team threads. Thanks.

[Stu]

Somethings that were noticed by myself and @organicmeasure

The deep recess underneath the floor stay, might have been discussed here not sure. It's purpose far outside of my technical know-how.

Second thing, the pink lines show the diffuser expansion, or so I think, which seems to start incredibly early, almost mid floor. Far earlier than other team I've compared to.


https://ibb.co/8XH30Zk


Here's AMR24 for comparison.


https://imgbb.com/

Indeed, looks like a small indent on the top skin of the floor, it could have little to no influence on the bottom surface.

https://preview.redd.it/vsscp25w4uic1.j ... 869f49e2c8

It looks to me (and this only became clear in the view from above) as though they have a double-radiused edge (much as with the high cannon exits); to control spillage as the air flows rearwards? From a low viewpoint this would look exactly as @scuderiabrandon is describing, but the Venturi is not starting forwards, the radius edge height is increasing rearwards.

[Andi76]

The SF 23 was not a slow car last year, beating the RB on pure pace more than any other entrant.

Don't think they maximised it in competition, took some considerable time to understand how to get out of TD039 predicament, ultimately until last iteration of the floor etc toward the end of 2023.
Looked like they were still "stroking" PU software in combating 2022 mechanical reliability issues during initial phase of 23 too.

Pure and absolute pace was generally close to RB.....their own assessment seemed to intelligently, and with diligence, list and target primary areas of concern that they appeared to have verified quite thoroughly during 2023.

Sidepod and associated aero map, plus optimisation of rear suspension that they acknowledged was good (concern seems to be solely underfloor aero impact/volume) looks to be a very very solid development in evolving their car.

Casual observance of "why haven't they gone pushrod " seems a very crude and naive analysis by way of determination and projection of performance that we've all yet to see.

They seem set to offer the most evolved challenge they can to RB, I feel there is good room for more optimistic expectation.

I completely agree! The whole push/pullrod debate is completely exaggerated anyway and I think that's what Cardille was trying to say. At the end of the day, there is hardly any difference between pushrod and pullrod from a mechanical point of view, because each has its advantages and disadvantages that practically balance each other out.

Funnily enough, thanks to the great F1 media experts, nowadays everyone thinks Pullrod at the front and Pushrod at the back is the philosopher's stone, which is just nonsense. A pushrod suspension at the front pulls air in, a pullrod suspension pushes air out. To say that one or the other is better is simply wrong, because aerodynamically speaking it depends on the rest of the car which works better. Just as it always depends on the "whole machine". Things like weight and stiffness also play a role here. Not just one of them! And it always depends on what you need and where, and how to balance this in the best possible way.

A pullrod suspension at the rear moves the suspension components closer to the ground, lower the chassis of the vehicle, and lower the centre of gravity to improve efficiency in cornering, body-roll, and high-speed stability. So if you have enough downforce in the rear anyway and don't need more diffuser expansion, it's an excellent solution. It always depends on the machine as a whole. Always.

And how great the so-called F1 experts often are and how much you can put on what they say should be illustrated by an example:

they glorified the advantages regarding better ride height control of the Red Bull " anti-dive" pullrod front suspension and its platform control (which in reality is indeed there but here we are talking about very minimal advantages that also have disadvantages and again - it is a question of what is best for the whole machine and what is needed where - it is always a trade-off!). If we now think back to 2023 for a moment, a decisive factor was how low your ride heights were in the rear and how stable you could keep these low ride height here... so shouldn't it actually make a pullrod suspension much more necessary and advantageous on the rear axle as it gives you better plattform control where it is decisive? I think this example makes it clear what kind of, sorry, garbage all these so-called experts sometimes say and how little sense it sometimes makes!

[bagajohny]

Great video explaining how the suspension works with other elements of the car and why copying other teams in isolation will not work. Now I understand why Ferrari chose not to change their suspension to match RB.

[maxxer]

The SF 23 was not a slow car last year, beating the RB on pure pace more than any other entrant.

Don't think they maximised it in competition, took some considerable time to understand how to get out of TD039 predicament, ultimately until last iteration of the floor etc toward the end of 2023.
Looked like they were still "stroking" PU software in combating 2022 mechanical reliability issues during initial phase of 23 too.

Pure and absolute pace was generally close to RB.....their own assessment seemed to intelligently, and with diligence, list and target primary areas of concern that they appeared to have verified quite thoroughly during 2023.

Sidepod and associated aero map, plus optimisation of rear suspension that they acknowledged was good (concern seems to be solely underfloor aero impact/volume) looks to be a very very solid development in evolving their car.

Casual observance of "why haven't they gone pushrod " seems a very crude and naive analysis by way of determination and projection of performance that we've all yet to see.

They seem set to offer the most evolved challenge they can to RB, I feel there is good room for more optimistic expectation.

I completely agree! The whole push/pullrod debate is completely exaggerated anyway and I think that's what Cardille was trying to say. At the end of the day, there is hardly any difference between pushrod and pullrod from a mechanical point of view, because each has its advantages and disadvantages that practically balance each other out.

Funnily enough, thanks to the great F1 media experts, nowadays everyone thinks Pullrod at the front and Pushrod at the back is the philosopher's stone, which is just nonsense. A pushrod suspension at the front pulls air in, a pullrod suspension pushes air out. To say that one or the other is better is simply wrong, because aerodynamically speaking it depends on the rest of the car which works better. Just as it always depends on the "whole machine". Things like weight and stiffness also play a role here. Not just one of them! And it always depends on what you need and where, and how to balance this in the best possible way.

A pullrod suspension at the rear moves the suspension components closer to the ground, lower the chassis of the vehicle, and lower the centre of gravity to improve efficiency in cornering, body-roll, and high-speed stability. So if you have enough downforce in the rear anyway and don't need more diffuser expansion, it's an excellent solution. It always depends on the machine as a whole. Always.

And how great the so-called F1 experts often are and how much you can put on what they say should be illustrated by an example:

they glorified the advantages regarding better ride height control of the Red Bull " anti-dive" pullrod front suspension and its platform control (which in reality is indeed there but here we are talking about very minimal advantages that also have disadvantages and again - it is a question of what is best for the whole machine and what is needed where - it is always a trade-off!). If we now think back to 2023 for a moment, a decisive factor was how low your ride heights were in the rear and how stable you could keep these low ride height here... so shouldn't it actually make a pullrod suspension much more necessary and advantageous on the rear axle as it gives you better plattform control where it is decisive? I think this example makes it clear what kind of, sorry, garbage all these so-called experts sometimes say and how little sense it sometimes makes!

Thanks for this clear explanation and putting the push/pull in perspective. Before testing because i am sure the commentators wont stop talking about it.
It is still a diagonal rod in the way of the passing air, but now i see what the difference on aero is.
In the next post with the anti dive explanation. It is also said the gain is more on the back then the front.

[aleks_ader]

Personally i think narroew intake could go quite nice with downwash sidepods. That ramp and cockpit winglet could have nice fresh air too support any flow structure u wanna push towards edges and on top of the floor.

Now where they ditch the bathtub completely and focused on localized hot air extraction underneath low pressure zone (mainly) of RW. Ergo this speculatively opens new area too support and also forces u too also rethink whole flow on top of ramp.I think narrow triangular pod is quite nice complementary feature. Sidepods are bulbous anyway... Why dont use this free volume anyway.

[organic]

Better quality comparison photos of the two different engine covers run in the filming day

I believe most of the difference in appearance is due to lighting, but there's certainly a large difference in terms of sharkfin

Ama.m_photo

[AR3-GP]

If you follow the line of the Marlboro pack on the engine cover (PMI is alive and well), you can make out that the bump is still there. I think it's mainly the shark fin as you say. The departure angle of the trailing edge of engine cover looks lower in one of them but that could be lighting, again as you say.

[bagajohny]

If you follow the line of the Marlboro pack on the engine cover (PMI is alive and well), you can make out that the bump is still there. I think it's mainly the shark fin as you say. The departure angle of the trailing edge of engine cover looks lower in one of them but that could be lighting, again as you say.

I am no expert but this is my two cents. and a display of my Paint skills
If you look at where the bottom line intersects the "E" badge on the engine cover then you can see that in the top image it cuts right in the middle but in the bottom image it cuts just below the mid point. This leads me to believe that the bottom panel bump is less and it may not be just lighting. What do you think?

[amr]

Wouldn't take the helmet as a reference point.
Second picture is with DRS open so maybe higher speed and the driver head is lower in the cockpit.
It feels the same volume overall just with larger shark fin and different lighting/shadows.

[FDD]

Better quality comparison photos of the two different engine covers run in the filming day

I believe most of the difference in appearance is due to lighting, but there's certainly a large difference in terms of sharkfin

Ama.m_photo

https://i.imgur.com/zy1uEPa.jpeg

Trailing edge starting with horizontal line then going downwards on the second pic. on the first is going imidiatly downwards.

[.poz]

Better quality comparison photos of the two different engine covers run in the filming day

I believe most of the difference in appearance is due to lighting, but there's certainly a large difference in terms of sharkfin

Ama.m_photo

https://i.imgur.com/zy1uEPa.jpeg

something interesting on the drs: the mobile profile has a vertical element at the edge. on the second image when drs is open you can see it oblique so it's part of the upper profile

[organic]

Better quality comparison photos of the two different engine covers run in the filming day

I believe most of the difference in appearance is due to lighting, but there's certainly a large difference in terms of sharkfin

Ama.m_photo

https://i.imgur.com/zy1uEPa.jpeg

Article talks about the engine cover comparison and clarified that the spec 1, trimmed engine cover is the one that will be in use for the season

And they also talk about the car being able to run higher wings without balance issues unlike the sf-23. Which means tyre wear can be better and drs effect can be greater