Scuderia Ferrari SF90

A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
cinquecento
cinquecento
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Joined: 21 Mar 2019, 18:24

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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GrizzleBoy wrote:
23 Mar 2019, 00:08
Juzh wrote:
22 Mar 2019, 17:35
dankane24 wrote:
22 Mar 2019, 13:56
Interesting article,
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/tech ... a/4356509/
Hope the conclusion drawn by the author are correct and it was just multiple unfortunate circumstances that caused Ferrari to lose it's testing pace in Australia.
From the article:
This exacerbated the problems at hand and allowed Vettel to slip back into the clutches of Leclerc, whose issues had subsided with the use of the harder tyre and allowed him to recover energy in a more conventional way, limiting his apex losses and generally being quicker on the straights.

A detailed look on the f1 timing would tell us leclerc had at best the same pathetic speed on the straights as Vettel did, so this explanation is somewhat sketchy.
Leclerc had speed trap speeds comparable to the Mercs in Q3 though.

It was only Seb who had notably lower top speed in Q3.

I guess the race is another matter though.
Maybe, watching Vet's problem in the qualy, Ferrari detune Lec's PU for the race as well.
For the motorsport article, if it's indeed the FW is the main problem, strange that Ferrari managed to take turn 11-12 comparable to Mercs.
Yes maybe the FW design less advantageous in a circuit like Albert Park, but not as big as the article suggested. I think.
If it's as simple as that, Binotto wouldn't be so surprised.

Leon
Leon
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Joined: 23 Feb 2011, 21:58
Location: Armenia

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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I am not sure fully, but it seems SF90 have an interesting and unique profile of the front wing's endplate. unfortunately could not find closeup overhead views.

Image
"Clouds now and again
give a soul some respite from
moon-gazing-behold."

Matsuo Basho

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Chuckjr
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Joined: 24 Feb 2012, 08:34
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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roon wrote:
20 Mar 2019, 02:30
The vibrating T-wing. A help, or a hindrance?

GrandAxe wrote:
19 Mar 2019, 16:08
https://streamable.com/c2i03
I dunno if anyone noticed but you can really clearly hear the turbo spin and it's interesting to notice it is completely spun up at the end of the slow corners and has ZERO lag, and then later in he straight you can hear it lag downward in pitch as it's used for charging or whatever Ferrari has designated in the mapping. I just didn't want people to miss this aspect of this very revealing video. It's outstanding.
Watching F1 since 1986.

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SiLo
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Joined: 25 Jul 2010, 19:09

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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Leon wrote:
24 Mar 2019, 18:58
I am not sure fully, but it seems SF90 have an interesting and unique profile of the front wing's endplate. unfortunately could not find closeup overhead views.

https://i.ibb.co/rH1QB4G/ferrarifrontwingendplate.png
Don't most teams have a similar profile?
Felipe Baby!

Leon
Leon
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Location: Armenia

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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SiLo wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 11:28
Leon wrote:
24 Mar 2019, 18:58
I am not sure fully, but it seems SF90 have an interesting and unique profile of the front wing's endplate. unfortunately could not find closeup overhead views.

https://i.ibb.co/rH1QB4G/ferrarifrontwingendplate.png
Don't most teams have a similar profile?
The Ferrari's front part is curved more to outward where the others' looks straight
Image
"Clouds now and again
give a soul some respite from
moon-gazing-behold."

Matsuo Basho

zibby43
zibby43
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... o-schwach/

"Why was Ferrari so weak?"

Excerpt (translated):

The third sector of Barcelona?

You can't overestimate the influence of the top speeds on the lap time. The decisive factor is what happens in the corners. And that brings us back to the subject of slow corners. The words of Valtteri Bottas still ring in our ears during the tests, when Mercedes was still poking in the fog. "The car clearly got better in slow corners. But in the fast corners we still feel an instability in the rear." Since Barcelona mainly consists of long and fast corners, this deficit was disproportionately significant there. When Mercedes now says that they were enlightened on the last day of testing, it's very likely the problem in the fast corners. This has obviously been solved by changing the aero balance.

Flashback to Barcelona. There is an interesting detail from the comparison of Vettel's and Hamilton's fastest laps that could give an indication of why Ferrari was worse than expected in Melbourne. And that it may not only have to do with the set-up, as Ferrari wants to tell us. Let's recall Barcelona for a moment. The first sector consists of three fast corners. The second consists of two slow corners, one medium fast, one fast corner and one straight. The third consists of five slow corners, one medium fast and one fast. And now the two top laps in sector comparison (see the graphic on the AMuS page)

Notice anything? Hamilton took three tenths of a second off the Ferrari in the third sector, whose corners are most similar to those in Melbourne. So already in Barcelona, where the Ferrari was still in shape. That's a lot of wood and suggests that even a well-balanced Ferrari has a problem in this area. Ferrari made up for the lost time in the first two sectors, where the corners are mostly fast and have long radii.

There are no such sectors in Melbourne. The last 31 seconds of the lap are the closest to Barcelona, and that's where Ferrari lost the least time on Mercedes. By the way, the Mercedes and Ferrari were absolutely identical at top speed and speed measurement on the finish line in Barcelona. Which leads to the conclusion that the car is relatively identical in terms of power and drag.

Suspension travel and aerodynamics

In Melbourne, the slow corners are what count most. Seven of the 16 corners are under 160 km/h. Mercedes was already in a good position. If the silver arrows have not lost anything on Ferrari thanks to the homework between the test drives and the first race in the fast corners, and Ferrari could not solve his problem in the slow corners, a good lead is quickly achieved.

Possibly Ferrari knew about his weakness and messed up the setup more and more to recover the weakness. Maybe Ferrari could have learned something from Red Bull, who also turned in circles with the set-up, but jumped on the right train at the last minute. At first the suspension was trimmed to hard and harder and the lap times became slower and slower. It was only when they went softer that Red Bull was able to escape the trap.

It must worry Ferrari that there are more slow than fast corners in Bahrain as well. That mechanical grip is as important as good aerodynamics. In the first reflex one would say that Ferrari should also allow more suspension travel. But that's not always easy. Maybe the aerodynamic platform of the SF90 only works in a small window at ground clearance. That would be a serious problem, because it is not easy to solve. Because of its front wing concept, Ferrari has to drive a lot of pitch in order to get back the downforce via a deep wing, which one normally loses with this arrangement of front wing flaps.

Mercedes' doubts about the front wing philosophy of Ferrari, Alfa-Sauber, Toro Rosso, McLaren and Haas were centered around the question of how to get the downforce back on the front axle. Sky expert Martin Brundle reported from the track that the Ferrari had shown too much understeer in the slow corners. In an effort to stop this, the engineers may have overstepped the mark. They made the rear end weaker, but paid for it with poorer traction and more tyre wear.

The Mercedes engineers nevertheless believe in a one-off slip and attribute it to the Ferrari's unusually heavy tyre wear.

"In Barcelona, Ferrari, we and Haas were on about the same level. In Melbourne the Ferrari was a different car. This is shown by the pictures taken by the onboard camera. The thing that drove on rails in Barcelona was suddenly unstable in Melbourne. The only differences were the track characteristics, the temperatures and the wind."

LM10
LM10
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Joined: 07 Mar 2018, 00:07

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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Vettel was 2 tenths faster in S3 in a run prior to his fastest. So looking at the fastest lap overall to measure each sector times is not really the best way. Maybe AMuS should have taken this into consideration before claiming that Ferrari was at least 3 tenths down on raw pace in S3 and hence 7 tenths in Melbourne because Albert Park is a track similar to S3 in Barcelona.

Nevertheless, I think Mercedes is the fastest car in slow corners. A perfectly set-up Ferrari would still have been slower than Mercedes. Just pointing out that AMuS could have gone more into detail for this analysis.

Btw., the Ferrari team thread might be a better place for this topic. :)

zibby43
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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LM10 wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 21:13
Vettel was 2 tenths faster in S3 in a run prior to his fastest. So looking at the fastest lap overall to measure each sector times is not really the best way. Maybe AMuS should have taken this into consideration before claiming that Ferrari was at least 3 tenths down on raw pace in S3 and hence 7 tenths in Melbourne because Albert Park is a track similar to S3 in Barcelona.

Nevertheless, I think Mercedes is the fastest car in slow corners. A perfectly set-up Ferrari would still have been slower than Mercedes. Just pointing out that AMuS could have gone more into detail for this analysis.

Btw., the Ferrari team thread might be a better place for this topic. :)
I think it fits both threads. I noticed that there have been several articles posted in this thread re: the subject of Ferrari's performance in Australia.

Articles discussing what the hardware-related cause could have been.

Accordingly, I included this link and excerpt here specifically due to the discussion of the front wing, suspension kinematics, general aerodynamic philosophy, etc.

CriXus
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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Image

Full Video

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw

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Juzh
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Joined: 06 Oct 2012, 08:45

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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LM10 wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 21:13
Vettel was 2 tenths faster in S3 in a run prior to his fastest. So looking at the fastest lap overall to measure each sector times is not really the best way. Maybe AMuS should have taken this into consideration before claiming that Ferrari was at least 3 tenths down on raw pace in S3 and hence 7 tenths in Melbourne because Albert Park is a track similar to S3 in Barcelona.
Check your info. His first run in Q3 was 32.142, his second run was 32.034

LM10
LM10
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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Juzh wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 23:38
LM10 wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 21:13
Vettel was 2 tenths faster in S3 in a run prior to his fastest. So looking at the fastest lap overall to measure each sector times is not really the best way. Maybe AMuS should have taken this into consideration before claiming that Ferrari was at least 3 tenths down on raw pace in S3 and hence 7 tenths in Melbourne because Albert Park is a track similar to S3 in Barcelona.
Check your info. His first run in Q3 was 32.142, his second run was 32.034
You completely missed the point. I was talking about the times in Barcelona testing.

roon
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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So they adapted the RB14 sidepod inlet shape, essentially.

mantikos
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Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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roon wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 23:49
So they adapted the RB14 sidepod inlet shape, essentially.
And the Merc W09 post update

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Juzh
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Joined: 06 Oct 2012, 08:45

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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LM10 wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 23:43
Juzh wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 23:38
LM10 wrote:
26 Mar 2019, 21:13
Vettel was 2 tenths faster in S3 in a run prior to his fastest. So looking at the fastest lap overall to measure each sector times is not really the best way. Maybe AMuS should have taken this into consideration before claiming that Ferrari was at least 3 tenths down on raw pace in S3 and hence 7 tenths in Melbourne because Albert Park is a track similar to S3 in Barcelona.
Check your info. His first run in Q3 was 32.142, his second run was 32.034
You completely missed the point. I was talking about the times in Barcelona testing.
in that case you're right :D

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Mr.G
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Location: Slovakia

Re: Scuderia Ferrari SF90

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Any pictures of the car from Bahrain?
Art without engineering is dreaming. Engineering without art is calculating. Steven K. Roberts