Perhaps what’s most interesting about Ferrari’s performance is that it was achieved without making any significant improvements to its car.
While work is underway on what is considered a fairly significant development step for the start of the European season at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the changes have so far only been minor touches.
It was a small change to the rear suspension’s upper wishbone fairing that caught the attention in Japan, as the team changed the length of the rear strut chord (highlighted in yellow, in medallion).
Ferrari, like several other teams, has opted for what appears, at least outwardly, to be a multi-link arrangement with its upper wishbone.
However, the assembly converges where it meets the post, which is out of sight behind the brake duct fence.
The design provides some flexibility from an aerodynamic standpoint, while also allowing the brake duct outlet to be resized to suit its needs and allowing the fin cluster behind to operate more efficiently.
A fascinating aspect of Ferrari’s early campaign is that it has not changed the specification of its rear wing in the four events so far, even though the venues in play all had different downforce requirements. and drag.
The only rear wing changes we’ve seen, according to the FIA submission documents, are the Maranello team bringing in various old options in case they’re needed for the Saudi Arabian and Japanese Grands Prix.
In both of these cases, it was noted that these were items carried over from 2023, rather than fully developed solutions specific for 2024.
Both were more or less fallbacks that could be used if conditions demanded – but were ultimately unnecessary.
Instead, Ferrari was able to adapt its car to the demands of each race weekend by reducing its wing layout.
For high downforce tracks, its biplane style configuration was used in both Bahrain (top left) and Japan (bottom right), while a single element was installed in Saudi Arabia and Australia, although with additional pylon fins added for Albert. Park.
All eyes are now on the scale of progress this will represent for Imola.
