2024 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[jambuka]

Has the characteristic of the car changed from last year ? S3 was pretty good, so I think they have managed to keep the straight line speed. Was there improvement over S1, S2 from last year ? Also feels like
* car was still riding high.
* suspension was still quite stiff.

[SoulPancake13]

Yeah, the sad part about this whole thing is that the team has seemingly done a good job. The car is visibly easier to drive and tire deg seems not only ok, but is a strength of the car relative to the competition I think.

If only we didn't waste a whole year.

Still 24 races left. By the end, who knows? - that's the optimist in me

[SoulPancake13]

Has the characteristic of the car changed from last year ? S3 was pretty good, so I think they have managed to keep the straight line speed. Was there improvement over S1, S2 from last year ? Also feels like
* car was still riding high.
* suspension was still quite stiff.

Palmer mentioned it on the F1TV broadcast but it seems like they were testing the absolute limits of stiffness today

[CouncilorIrissa]

Yeah, the sad part about this whole thing is that the team has seemingly done a good job. The car is visibly easier to drive and tire deg seems not only ok, but is a strength of the car relative to the competition I think.

If only we didn't waste a whole year.

Still 24 races left. By the end, who knows? - that's the optimist in me

Here's h(c)oping that there is some pace in the car to show. Nothing would please me more than giving a nasty surprise to Marko and co
Besides, they have a new mechanical setup at the rear, so they might need some time to optimize everything.

[MTL79]

Are there any team comments anywhere?

[Xyz22]

Yeah, the sad part about this whole thing is that the team has seemingly done a good job. The car is visibly easier to drive and tire deg seems not only ok, but is a strength of the car relative to the competition I think.

If only we didn't waste a whole year.

In hindsight, it's clear that they should have pivoted to the "RB/AM" concept (i know Ferrari is not a copy of these cars, just using a simple way to express the different approach Ferrari was using compared to the competition) in 2022 already. Instead they tried to evolve their 2022 concept with the SF 23 and we know what happened.

When you lose 1.5 years of development, is hard to catch up with a team like RB.

In any event, let's see tomorrow what happens.

[Vanja #66]

What's your view on today, Vanja? Don't be shy

Personally the car looks to be a huge improvement already over the SF 23. I have no idea how it will compare to the RB 20 which i think is easily the fastest car, but that was to be expected, especially at the start of the season.

Go for it.

In short, they were running the car much further from the limit (slower) compared to last year's race. What improved mostly is how predictable and how balanced the car was, which is exactly what they focused their work on. It doesn't matter if the car had full tank or half a tank of fuel in, the improvement is either big or huge compared to last year.

As for RB20, according to Marko they are really only 3 tenths ahead. In my view, with limited running so far, it's anywhere from 2-4 tenths to the closest car. Anything less than 5 tenths would be a success for following teams, since RB19 was ahead even with so few updates in 2023 and the bulk of improvement ended up in RB20. This was my pre-season expectation. Also I expected McLaren to be ahead of Ferrari since Ferrari have more to learn. but we are yet to see these fine details obviously.

[Xyz22]

What's your view on today, Vanja? Don't be shy

Personally the car looks to be a huge improvement already over the SF 23. I have no idea how it will compare to the RB 20 which i think is easily the fastest car, but that was to be expected, especially at the start of the season.

Go for it.

In short, they were running the car much further from the limit (slower) compared to last year's race. What improved mostly is how predictable and how balanced the car was, which is exactly what they focused their work on. It doesn't matter if the car had full tank or half a tank of fuel in, the improvement is either big or huge compared to last year.

As for RB20, according to Marko they are really only 3 tenths ahead. In my view, with limited running so far, it's anywhere from 2-4 tenths to the closest car. Anything less than 5 tenths would be a success for following teams, since RB19 was ahead even with so few updates in 2023 and the bulk of improvement ended up in RB20. This was my pre-season expectation. Also I expected McLaren to be ahead of Ferrari since Ferrari have more to learn. but we are yet to see these fine details obviously.

Overall i agree. I don't know about the gaps but if Ferrari will be 0.3s behind RB in Bahrain in the race i would say they have done a very good job during the winter.

By the way Sainz today said that even in the corners in which the SF 23 was strong and sometimes even quicker than RB in quali trim they would lose 0.4 / 0.5s in race trim

[jambuka]

What's your view on today, Vanja? Don't be shy

Personally the car looks to be a huge improvement already over the SF 23. I have no idea how it will compare to the RB 20 which i think is easily the fastest car, but that was to be expected, especially at the start of the season.

Go for it.

In short, they were running the car much further from the limit (slower) compared to last year's race. What improved mostly is how predictable and how balanced the car was, which is exactly what they focused their work on. It doesn't matter if the car had full tank or half a tank of fuel in, the improvement is either big or huge compared to last year.

As for RB20, according to Marko they are really only 3 tenths ahead. In my view, with limited running so far, it's anywhere from 2-4 tenths to the closest car. Anything less than 5 tenths would be a success for following teams, since RB19 was ahead even with so few updates in 2023 and the bulk of improvement ended up in RB20. This was my pre-season expectation. Also I expected McLaren to be ahead of Ferrari since Ferrari have more to learn. but we are yet to see these fine details obviously.

Overall i agree. I don't know about the gaps but if Ferrari will be 0.3s behind RB in Bahrain in the race i would say they have done a very good job during the winter.

By the way Sainz today said that even in the corners in which the SF 23 was strongest and sometimes even quicker than RB in quali trim they would lose 0.4 / 0.5s in race trim

If Ferrari spent most of the day today only understanding the new suspension and testing ride heights without pursuing performance, feels like they will be within 0.2 seconds of RB(race pace) once they are able to get it in optimal operating window.

[CouncilorIrissa]

Deg looks good on these long runs.

yeah very good. Came out again and did another few laps in low 1.37.2-3 and now back to mid-high 1.37s on the same set of c3s that are now on 26 laps or approaching half race distance. That's good.

36+ laps on those tires, last lap still 1.37.6

I've taken a look at the data dumps by @f1debrief and found this statement to be incorrect (not surprising: 36 laps on C3s in Bahrain with constant times is world-beater territory).

Here's the link:
In short, all three of 9-10 lap stints started on 10-lap old tires.

edit: ouch, it ended up being embedded. Even better

[Xyz22]

yeah very good. Came out again and did another few laps in low 1.37.2-3 and now back to mid-high 1.37s on the same set of c3s that are now on 26 laps or approaching half race distance. That's good.

36+ laps on those tires, last lap still 1.37.6

I've taken a look at the data dumps by @f1debrief and it's incorrect (not surprising: 36 laps on C3s in Bahrain with constant times is world-beater territory).

Here's the link:
In short, all three of 9-10 lap stints started on 10-lap old tires.

edit: ouch, it ended up being embedded. Even better

Still very good compared to last year.

[CouncilorIrissa]

36+ laps on those tires, last lap still 1.37.6

I've taken a look at the data dumps by @f1debrief and it's incorrect (not surprising: 36 laps on C3s in Bahrain with constant times is world-beater territory).

Here's the link:
In short, all three of 9-10 lap stints started on 10-lap old tires.

edit: ouch, it ended up being embedded. Even better

Still very good compared to last year.

Yep. Pretty sure SF23 would've had this compound destroyed 10 laps in.

[Vanja #66]

Tyre life data has some wild inconsistencies, I wouldn't take it for valid for any driver

[ForzaFerrari3928]

Looking at the last three stints from Sainz, the tire deg definitely looked very good compared to same time last year.

Stint 1:
Lap 10: 1:37.816
Lap 18: 1:37.535

Stint 2:
Lap 10: 1:37.444
Lap 18: 1:37.929

Stint 3:
Lap 9 : 1:37.107
Lap 17: 1:37.424

[organic]

Why are you acting like the sf-23 didn't have some of the best degradation towards the end of last year? Mexico, Vegas, Abu Dhabi all showed arguably better degradation than RB on the softer compounds.

The progress should be considered compared to the sf-23 evo even if that makes laptime comparisons impossible