The Scuderia’s impressive performance in recent weeks has not gone unnoticed. Despite a disappointing result in France, do Leclerc and Sainz have the package behind them to bring Ferrari back to the top?
What were the main problems in 2020?
Ferrari’s 2020 season was determined by 2 main drawbacks: a weak P.U. and an increased amount of aerodynamic drag, which led to the team ranking sixth in the constructor’s championship. The P.U. side of the problem was mainly caused by Ferrari’s illegal engine in 2019, which offered the cars enhanced performances mainly on speed tracks. They were fined by the FIA for this and had to drastically change it for the 2020 season, which obviously was why the issues started to arise, not only power wise but also in terms of drag levels.
The 2021 Upgrades
Aerodynamics & Chassis
Rake
Ferrari run the advantaged high rake concept, which is not as targeted by the new 2021 rules as the low rake cars are. These regulations require that all cars have a tapered floor rather than a straight one. Since low rake cars rely on a larger floor to create downforce, their performance have been reduced by the decrease of the floor area towards the rear tyre. This is not the case for Ferrari, therefore it is an advantage to the struggling Aston Martin team (A.M. run a low rake concept), one of their predicted main rivals.
Rear flexiwing
It has been brought up by Mercedes, putting the spotlight on Red Bull’s advantage from its slight aerodynamic benefit on the straights. What might not be as well known is that Ferrari are using the same ‘flexiwing’.
But how does it create an advantage? Mountings on the upper endplates and the upper rear wing cause lateral vibrations, which makes them slightly rotate and therefore tilt rearwards under load. This happens because, with the increase in air velocity, the air pressure on top of the wing also rises which creates load (A small amount of deformation is unavoidable because the wing can not be infinitely stiff, otherwise it would be too brittle and snap. The resulting car instability and unpredictability would be a safety and sporting issue). Consequently, the front area of the rear wing is reduced which results in less drag and more speed on the straights.
Rear components
Ferrari spent their development tokens on the rear of the car: the rear end is more tapered, slimming down the back of the monopost and decreasing drag levels. Rear aerodynamics are important, because a big percentage of the drag force is concentrated at the back end of the car. Less drag means less fuel consumption because the car is fighting the forces that bring the car backwards, less. A weak rear also causes the tyres to slip too much and cause oversteer: rear instability was a dominant feature of the 2020 SF1000 with its bulkier rear, but Ferrari seem to have found a solution.
In addition to this, the rear suspension has been brought a little more backwards and its structure has also been altered by rearranging the exact same components which were on the 2020 cars. The visible part of a regular suspension consists of an upper and a lower wishbone and a suspension arm. The crash structure is where the lower wishbone was previously mounted on, but in 2021 Ferrari have placed the lower wishbone under, but still close to it.
A new nose
This would have also required a development token, but the team has found a loophole in the rules and made improvements without having to spend another token. Ferrari redesigned their nose cone by keeping its internal main structure and just removing parts of the carbon fibre layer on the outside of the nose. Another change from the SF1000 are the additional nose cone winglets, small aerodynamic elements.
Power Unit
Energy Recovery System & MGU-H
Ferrari have made massive changes to their P.U. not only to gain more horsepower, but also to create less drag and to improve reliability. While still being around 20 hp behind Mercedes and around 15 hp behind Honda, they made a 20-30 hp improvement from last season, when they had 50-60 hp less than Mercedes. The internal combustion engine and the turbocharger might not be quite there yet, however, it seems like Ferrari have the best ERS on the grid, because of their improvements on electronics and on the MGU-H which converts exhaust gases into power.
“Superfast’’ engine
Ferrari adapted an efficient combustion chamber in their new engine. Due to the turbulence created, the fuel is atomized more efficiently because the pressure inside of it is greater. In engineering, the pressure is measured in bar. The F1 regulations limit the combustion chamber pressure to 500 bar and Ferrari’s goal was to exploit these pressure levels the best they could, coming as close as possible to the limit. In addition, Shell developed a more energy dense fuel (less fuel volume for higher energy and therefore more power) which improves performance by 0.1s / lap, a feature especially handy in qualifying, where they currently excel.
Gear Box & Differentials
Aerodynamics have also been upgraded by slimming down the gear box. On top of that, the sidepods now create less drag, because the radiator responsible for cooling the engine has been redesigned, together with the roll hoop. The rear differential is larger on the SF21 though. Why? The short answer is more traction. The long answer: the diff controls the way torque is delivered to the rear wheels. Torque is the rotational equivalent of linear force, so it measures the force it takes to spin something around an axis. As the rear wheels travel around a corner on a curved path, the outside wheel has to travel a greater distance in comparison to the inside one, which results in the outer wheel reaching a higher speed. If the rear wheels would be connected to each other like the front ones are, the inner wheel would be forced to travel at the same speed with the outer one, causing the inner tyre to rotate more and therefore create more wear. Locking the diff solves this issue because it allows the wheels to travel at different speeds (it is a system based on interconnected gears attached to shafts and it is electro-hydraulically controlled). This is achieved by delivering different amounts of torque to the rear wheels throughout a corner, preventing the inner unloaded tyre from spinning when the throttle is picked up.
Monaco race debrief: track specifics and impressive results
The Monaco street circuit is the pure definition of a downforce track: with 19 turns, the only straight of the track being very short and the top speed being 293 km/h (average speed 161 km/h), traction and braking are the most important elements of the race.
Coming back to the high rake nature of the Ferrari cars, Monaco suits their machine quite well whilst removing their disadvantage to their rivals on the P.U. side, which has been something the team has visibly suffered from in the last season and on the previous tracks. Their massive rear ‘flexiwing’ and the perfect set up helped Ferrari to achieve pole and P4 in qualifying.
After the only pit stop of his race, Sainz’ Ferrari was quickly able to bring the new tyres in the right temperature window, unlike Hamilton’s Mercedes, which is a massive advantage on any circuit. If Leclerc wouldn’t have had the gearbox issue, it would have been very likely that he could win the race. Sainz secured P2 and the team’s first 2021 podium.
Comments