A Future Aerodynamic Plan for the Ferrari SF-24
There was much optimism with the unveiling of last year’s Ferrari F1–75, a car that had been developed over the course of two years. The unique “bathtub” sidepod concept was initially misunderstood by many experts. Still, by the first few races, the car proved particularly strong in the corners, while lacking slightly behind its competitor, the Red Bull RB18, on the straights. However, as strategy blunders cost the championship, the second half of the season saw the F1–75 significantly less dominant. As an outsider, the cause of this was unknown. However, one can link this with the fact that the 2023 car was already being developed and that the FIA cracked down on Ferrari and Red Bull’s flexifloors with the official Aerodynamic Oscillation Metric.
Entering 2023, Ferrari’s SF-23 was supposed to follow in the footsteps of its previous rendition and challenge for a championship. It continued to follow its 2022 concept with the deep-dished sidepods, but by the time the season had begun, the car had glaring issues. In qualifying, the car’s strong suit, it was still a few tenths off the pace of the leading Red Bull RB19s. In the race, the increased fuel load slowed the car down significantly while tire degradation was very, very disappointing on the new car. This lack of performance can be attributed to the fact that Ferrari underwent a major leadership change between 2022 and 2023 with the replacement of team boss Mattia Binotto with Fred Vasseur and the exits of David Sanchez, the head of the aero department, and Laurent Mekies, Ferrari’s sporting director. So, what can Ferrari do to get back to the front of the field in 2024 and how can they use this season to develop next year’s car?
Many people have been quick to point out that Ferrari needs to pivot their sidepod concept to the smooth, flat-edged design that Red Bull has pioneered over the last couple of years. However, it is important to understand Ferrari’s concept’s benefits and how they can take key aspects from the Red Bull RB19 and combine them with their current car.
To start, the Ferrari’s current sidepod design allows the hot air exiting the cooling louvers to be directed upwards to the rear wing. This means that the rear wing has more of an impact on the car. For example, if Ferrari were to run a high downforce setup for the Monaco Grand Prix, both the air that would naturally meet the rear wing and the air that is directed upwards by the louvers would contribute to the downforce. This means that there is more downforce being generated by the rear wing. This helps explain why Ferrari managed to do well in Monaco qualifying last year. The same could go with a low-drag setup. Again, this shows why Ferrari managed to remain competitive in Monza last year. However, it is clear that the Red Bull RB18 and RB19 are both quicker cars on the straights. This comes down to their rear wing design. A clever, single beam-wing design with a more streamlined rear wing and diffuser allow Red Bull to have 20–30 kph advantages over Ferrari’s SF-23 on the straight when DRS is active. This effect is known as “triple DRS.”
Another glaring issue with the Ferrari is its understeering properties. Due to the Ferrari’s large sidepod edge, there is only a very thin undercut below the sidepod. Though some of the air is directed to the rear diffuser/underfloor of the car, much of the air coming through the undercut is being used to generate downforce near the Shell logo on the sidepod. This means that the majority of the air that comes through the undercut below the sidepod is creating front-end downforce. This is a dramatic difference from the Red Bull RB18 and 19’s sidepod design. The undercut on those cars is wider and guided the air directly to the rear diffuser section/beam-wing of the car. The flat top of the sidepod also guides the air towards that section of the vehicle. Due to all of the air that is being sent to the beam-wing and diffuser, both of those sections of the car can work much more efficiently with the volume of air that they are dealing with. This only helps Red Bull’s DRS effect. Additionally, the air that is being shoveled toward the rear of the car also means that the Red Bull has far more rear-biased downforce coming from the sidepods. It is common knowledge that the more front downforce a racecar has, the more understeer it has. So, the Ferrari SF-23 is an “understeery” car that, upon further inspection, misses apexes surprisingly often. This “understeery” characteristic of the car also does not help in the car’s tire degradation issues. A car that struggles from understeer also exacerbates its tire wear.
So, what can Ferrari do to solve these problems and come into 2024 with a strong car? To begin, Ferrari needs to revamp their car concept. However, I do not believe that they need to follow exactly what Red Bull is doing. Instead, I believe Ferrari’s SF-24 should follow something more similar to Aston Martin’s hybrid concept. The new car should have much smaller “bathtub” sidepods that leave enough room for a decently large undercut canal for air to go underneath the sidepod. This should resemble Red Bull’s current undercut design. However, above the undercut, instead of Red Bull’s flat, streamlined sidepod, Ferrari should continue with their shallowed design. This time, the sidepods are half the size but are much more extremely angled. This means that the hot air from louvers is somewhat aggressively flicked upwards to the rear wing while the air below the sidepod is guided to the diffuser and beam-wing section of the car. Imagine the RB19 sidepod with a slightly more aggressive version of the F1–75’s “bathtubs” replacing the flat edge. This concept promotes far more rear-end downforce for three reasons. Firstly, the increased amount of air that travels below the sidepod in the undercut all goes to the rear of the car, as opposed to the previous ground-effect Ferraris generating downforce at the front of the undercut. Secondly, the hot air from the engine and radiators that come from the louvers is pushed directly to the rear wing with no interference, just like the current SF-23. Though the new sidepod would be smaller, the aggressive curve would act in the same way as the SF-23 and F1–75. Finally, the aggressive upward curve in the sidepod acts as an aerodynamic element itself, namely a rear wing. The sudden upward curve would have the same blocking effect as the rear wing and could help add a slight bit of downforce in the middle/rear section of the car. This addresses the issues with front-rear downforce balance, but what about straight-line speed?
It is clear that the Ferrari SF-24 must follow the Red Bull RB19 when it comes to their DRS/rear wing drag reduction trick. Red Bull’s rear wing package is less cambered with less draggy tips. The overall rear wing is also slightly smaller than its rivals. Below the rear wing is where the rest of the magic happens. Red Bull’s single beam-wing design and “double diffuser” are more efficient than the SF-23’s lower rear section. However, if Ferrari were to implement this “triple DRS” system, they would need to make some slight changes. In an effort to increase rear downforce to fix those fundamental issues with the SF-23 that were previously touched upon, Ferrari should increase the size of the wing, knowing that there is additional natural downforce coming from the sidepods. However, increasing the size too much would negate the effect of the RB19 rear section. So, to minimize the effects of this, Ferrari’s new racecar must utilize the floor and Venturi tunnels to the absolute maximum. Though little is known about Red Bull’s floor magic, Ferrari must work to mimic it and continue to upgrade their new floor, which is scheduled to arrive sometime in May 2023. The floor should focus on balancing downforce generation. The floor has a greater impact on downforce than drag and Ferrari should use this to their advantage. However, it is important that their floor is constructed to maximize slightly more front-end downforce. This is to balance all of the rear end downforce that is being created from the sidepods and bigger rear wing.
Expanding upon the above point, the car at this point, creates a load of rear downforce, which is slightly balanced out by the floor. To properly help the balance of the car, and, in turn, the tire degradation issue, the SF-24 needs to increase the complexity of their floor fences. Red Bull’s RB19 currently has very large and complex fences which help make up for the car’s low downforce rear wing. Ferrari should take Red Bull’s fences into account when designing their SF-24, as it will be necessary to have aerodynamically efficient fences to generate ample front-end downforce for the car.
With a high downforce floor, the front wing of the car will not have to be as complex as before. Ferrari can create a low-drag front wing/nose section that will aid the rear setup in straight line speed.
Upon a full analysis of the SF-24’s possibilities, we see that the rear wing will be the most important part of the car. If Ferrari can mimic Red Bull’s triple-threat DRS system whilst also maintaining a rear wing and diffuser that can generate a competitive amount of downforce, something that Red Bull has effectively achieved, then the rest of the car will follow suit. The floor will generate the car’s front end downforce and balance the distribution of downforce throughout the vehicle while the front wing section can be low drag and help the car in straight line speed. Again, the sidepods structure will exacerbate the effect of the rear wing’s DRS advantage on the straights and also push the air into the diffuser to create both downforce and drag reduction.
Finally, Ferrari’s upcoming challenger can also take a page out of Red Bull’s ground effect suspension scheme which uses pull rod suspension at the front of the car and push rod at the rear. This is the opposite of every car but McLaren this year. Though it would take time and optimization to properly package this flipped suspension system into the SF-24, the system can help push more air through the underside of the car to generate the aforementioned front-end downforce that the Ferrari would be generating from the floor and floor fences. Additionally, Red Bull and McLaren’s tricks allow them to enjoy a far better car balance with these new regulations. Since the introduction of the current ground effect era of Formula 1, the cars’ suspension setups have had them moving a lot under braking, with visible chassis flex and roll. With the inverse suspension, the RB19 and MCL60 can change up the suspension settings of the car, with data from Red Bull showing them running their setup with 30 degrees more anti-dive than their competitors. This means that both products from Red Bull and McLaren are able to have far smoother drives with more balance when it comes to their cars’ centers of gravity. So, implementing this new suspension geometry would take much development for Ferrari, however, it would result in a more direct, smooth, and balanced car whilst also benefiting the front-end aerodynamic load of the car.
Though we are looking at 2024, this piece was written just hours after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, just the 4th round of 23 this season. Much can change between now and Abu Dhabi. However, Ferrari should already be thinking ahead to their longer-term plans in F1. They are lucky to have arguably the fastest driver in the sport, Charles Leclerc, locked into a seat with them until the end of 2024, but that means that if Ferrari does not manage to build Leclerc a capable, championship-worthy car for next year, it is very likely that they will have to look outside of their homegrown talent pool to have any chance at a championship for years to come. They need to perfect 2024 to keep Leclerc committed to the team and have a shot at winning more titles in the future. So, this means that Ferrari will need to build a car for Leclerc, not Sainz. That, in turn, means they must build an oversteering vehicle that suits the driving style of Leclerc, rather than a more understeery car that plays well to Carlos Sainz’s strengths.
So, what does a possible pathway to this SF-24 look like? Ferrari already has a comprehensive upgrade calendar that mainly focuses on the floor of the car along with suspension geometry. The upgrades will come in Miami, Imola, and Barcelona with Silverstone on the cards too. In this space of around 1 month, Ferrari needs to perfect the floor. The floor is one of the parts of the racecar that is not visible. This means that getting good data is even more important, as other teams’ floor design is unknown. Through the summer break, the team should have their floor for the SF-24 ready along with models for possible sidepod concept changes with CFD and wind tunnel data. The summer break should allow the Scuderia to test and work with different concepts and the setups that come with them. The second half of the season should remain focused on more car upgrades in an effort to further understand the SF-24. Expect further changes to the floor and floor fences, differences in the rear section of the car (rear wing, beam-wing, and diffuser), along with other new wings. If Ferrari were to follow my development path for the SF-24, much of the first half of the season should be focused on perfecting the floor and maximizing the downforce that can be created using the Venturi tunnels. Some sort of implementation of Red Bull’s current “triple DRS” would also be a great upgrade that, with enough research and development, would be beneficial to the SF-23 while also providing key information for the next year’s car. Over the summer, there would be many technical talks about the concept for next year’s car along with much computer simulation of the different possibilities, taking into account concepts from Red Bull, Aston Martin, and Ferrari themselves. By the time of Spa-Francorchamps, the team should begin preparing the finer details for the SF-24. These include how they run the front and rear wings and the floor/floor fences of the car. The second half of the season should again be focused on improving the current SF-23 using ideas for the SF-24. As the season comes to a close and upgrades on the 2023 challenger also die down, the Italian outfit needs to fully shift its focus to the SF-24. They would work in the CFD and wind tunnel to sort out the fine details of the car and get it prepped for the offseason. During the offseason, the team can properly develop the vehicle and make decisions on parts of the SF-24 which include the suspension geometry and other upgrades which would typically be considered too burdensome to implement during the season.