A pause to reverse course
After the start of the season below expectations, Ferrari is called to reverse the trend that hasn't seen her on the podium since last year. There long “spring break” given by the cancellation of the Chinese Grand Prix can certainly play in favor of the Reds, who have more time than usual to find their way back.
The Maranello team has in fact planned a huge package of changes which will be applied between the weekend of Baku (April 28-30) until that of Barcelona (June 2-4). In between there are five races (Azerbaijan, Miami, Emilia Romagna, Monaco and Spain) in which Ferrari must make up for a season that has never been so negative since 2009.
A Baku, an unusual street circuit that alternates endless straight lines with very fast stretches, you will see avery unloaded rear wing, adequately balanced by the front flaps. The Azerbaijani weekend will also be the first of six sprint rounds on the calendar this year, with only one session of free practice on Friday and a "shoot-out" qualification to decide the starting grid of the sprint race.
Updates: all-in in Baku with the new format?
Very little, therefore, the time to test the new changes. La Ferrari will risk bringing as many updates as possible, in a sort of all-in, or will wait for a classic weekend with three free practice sessions? In Maranello they are evaluating the first hypothesis, since The new aero package arrived early. As he writes Franco Nugnes on Motorsport.com, it's about bellies more sunken in the lower part to increase the opening under the radiator vents and the flow rate on the sidewalk. The redesigned sidesinstead, they will be introduced in Spain.
Positive feedback from the simulator
Leclerc tried the new simulator modifications with satisfactory results. We must, however, wait for the verdict of the track: thehyping around the SF-23 of last winter derived precisely from the feedback on the simulator. An option for Azerbaijan could be to run two different single-seaters in free practice, one with and one without updates.
However, the SF-23 has several positive aspects: it is second in peak performance and the gap in top speed from Red Bull is smaller than Mercedes and Aston Martin. The main aspect to improve is theaerodynamic efficiency and they have already seen themselves remarkable steps forward from Jeddah to Melbourne.
The next step is to get to put Leclerc e Sainz in a position to contend with Verstappen and Perez (since the step to battle with Aston Martin and Mercedes was already in Australia). This cannot be achieved with a version B (impossible to achieve due to time and budget reasons). Only time will tell if and when the set-up change will benefit the Ducati.
