Ferrari have revealed major revisions to their SF-23 chassis ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Like Mercedes, Ferrari have replaced their distinctive sidepods with one closer to designs seen on rival cars. The sculpted design, a widely noted feature of last year’s race-winning car which was carried over onto the SF-23, has been replaced with a version featuring flatter outer edges and a deeper channel within.The team’s drivers said yesterday they don’t expect the change to radically improve the car’s performance but hope it will become more predictable to driver and less ‘peaky’. The SF-23 has been strong over a single lap, even quick enough to beat Red Bull to pole position in Azerbaijan, but the team have suffered poor race pace and only scored a single podium finish from the six races so far.
Six other teams have brought extensive revisions to their cars this weekend, leaving only Alpine, Alfa Romeo and Haas with unchanged machines.
Aston Martin have worked on the front of their car, reprofiling part of the front wing and repositioning the camera mounted on the nose to improve the airflow further down the car including the its vital interaction with the front wheels. The positioning of the camera assembly is defined by the regulations. The team has also modified parts of its rear wing to improve airflow at a track where efficiency is a high priority.
Championship leaders Red Bull are not standing still, making two revisions to the underside of their car which gained so much attention when Sergio Perez’s crashed RB19 was craned away in full glare of the cameras in Monaco. While that focused attention the opportunity it gave their rivals to copy their design, Red Bull say the tweak to the diffuser on their car this weekend has “taken inspiration from competitor designs.”
More images of the cars’ updates to follow.
2023 Spanish Grand Prix F1 teams’ updates
The teams described the changes to their cars for this weekend’s race as follows:
Red Bull
Floor Edge
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Revised edge profile to locally manipulate the surfaces.”
Description: “Greater local load has been extracted from local floor edge detail by re-shaping to suit the local pressures whilst maintaining aerodynamic stability.”
Diffuser
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Top corners of the diffuser have been profiled for greater curvature”
Description: “A small increase in local load towards the trailing edge of the diffuser profile in the upper corners has been extracted with a more curved profile taking inspiration from competitor designs.”
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Ferrari
Rear Wing
Reason for change: Circuit specific – drag range
Difference: “Revised Top Rear Wing design”
Description: “Introduction of revised top rear wing main and flap profiles. This update refines the car polar, allowing to cover the aerodynamic efficiency requirements of the Barcelona circuit.”
Coke/Engine Cover
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Change in sidepod and central bodywork topologies”
Description: “This development focuses on flow conditioning towards the rear wing assembly and rear corner, combined with a different cooling flow management, for overall car efficiency improvements.”
Floor Body / Edge
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “New floor body / floor edge / floor edge wing”
Description: “Coming together with the sidepod update and involving evolutions of the main floor body as well as floor edge, these new geometries are optimizing local flow features for increased load benefits.”
Mercedes
Sidepod Inlet
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Mirror vane removed”
Description: “Upper mirror vane no longer required with the new bodywork – removing improves flow quality to the rear of the car and hence rear downforce.”
Diffuser
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Diffuser sidewall sideview profile change”
Description: “Small change to diffuser sideview profile, to allow more flow into the diffuser and to improve flow quality and hence increase local load.”
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McLaren
Front Corner
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “New Front Brake Duct Vane and Winglet shape”
Description: “The altered shape of Front Brake Vane and Winglet results in an improvement of flow conditioning which leads to an overall aerodynamic load increase.”
Aston Martin
Front Wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “The front wing flap has a different twist distribution with less variation in height across the trailing edge, also to suit the new tip. There are two versions of this flap available for different aerobalance ranges.”
Description: “The flap modifies the spanwise load distribution of the front wing to improve the overall performance and the downstream effects.”
Front Wing Endplate
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “The sections in the FWEP tip are distributed differently compared to the previous version of front wing.”
Description: “The new geometry improves how the tip of the wing interacts with the tyre behind it for better performance through the operating envelope.”
Nose
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “The nose camera incidence has been modified.”
Description: “Due to different onset conditions the nose camera incidence was re-aligned to improve the interaction and improve local downstream conditions.”
Rear Wing Endplate
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “There are detail changes to the endplate tip and some additional material on the inboard face of the main body. This can be used with two upper assys.”
Description: “The upper rear wing performance is improved by changes to the loading affected by the endplate, along with some load on the component itself.”
Beam Wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “There are two subtly different beam wings to suit the new endplates.”
Description: “The modifications are just small improvements to work with the new endplate and improve the distribution of load across the span of the wing.”
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AlphaTauri
Rear Wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “The upper wing elements have increased camber and incidence, particularly in the outboard part of the wing assembly. Refinement of beam wing tip blends.”
Description: “Compared to previously raced rear wing designs this further refinement aims to achieve improved downforce generation for cornering and drag reduction for straight line performance.”
Rear Wing Endplate
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “The outside face of the lower endplate has been modified to include a cambered vane.”
Description: “The cambered lower surface of the vane generates suction, which gives increased local load from the rear wing endplate.”
Williams
Front Wing
Reason for change: Circuit specific – balance range
Difference: “New, longer Gurney flap options for the Front Wing”
Description: “This update works by increasing the local Front Wing load to help balance the rear downforce in the high-speed corners “
Coke/Engine Cover
Reason for change: Circuit specific – cooling range
Difference: “There is now an optional exit duct for the central cooler. This hasn’t been present at previous events.”
Description: “This alters the relative air flow through the central and side coolers to help balance the cooling system. If we can achieve a better balance across all of the fluids then we can reduce the overall cooling level and realise an aero load gain”
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2023 Spanish Grand Prix
- Ben Sulayem raises safety concerns over “too many people on the grid” at races
- Why Ferrari say their change in design is the result of “discipline”, not “copying”
- Hamilton and Russell were seeking tow from Sainz when they collided – Mercedes
- Red Bull’s Spanish GP diffuser update was ‘inspired by rivals’ including Williams
- Why McLaren always doubted second-row start in Spain would lead to points finish
Scotty (@rockonscotty)
2nd June 2023, 12:58
I truly enjoy a rules change with all the different looking cars. It makes me a little sad when they all converge to a similar design. The Ferrari sidepods were just gorgeous! I do hope the upgrade makes the cars quicker for the sake of competition even though they wont be as pretty.