Ferrari has brought its biggest update of the season so far at its home race.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr’s SF-24s will feature reworked sidepod inlets and other bodywork changes for this weekend’s race at Imola.
The sidepod inlet changes have some obvious similarities to Red Bull’s class-leading RB20. Ferrari have consistently been the closest challengers to the world champions since the season began, though it remains to be seen whether Red Bull have brought improvements of their own for this weekend’s race.
The SF-24’s sidepod inlets were previously wide, letterbox-shaped openings with a pronounced lower lip. The new design is similar in some respects to what Red Bull have run since the start of the year.
The car now features a combination of horizontal and vertical inlets. The horizontal inlets widen where they meet the centre of the car and the vertical openings.
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This layout is familiar from the Red Bull, as is the upper lip above the inlet which now extends further forward.
Ferrari have altered some of the bodywork above the inlets. The wing mirror mountings (above) now feature longer vertical parts connecting them to the extended upper surface of the sidepod.
The surfaces which previously enclosed gaps either side of the Halo (below) have been replaced with curved pieces which form small wings at the top.
Carlos Sainz Jnr said the Chinese Grand Prix showed up some areas where the team needs to improve. “Miami was a better-suited track for our car and we had really good pace, even though McLaren and Red Bull maybe were half a step in front,” he said.
“Our car felt back to normal while in China, particularly, it felt really not good. So I think we’re going to be very track-dependent and hopefully Imola is one of those good tracks for us and we can put on a good show in front of the crowd. This would be an ideal scenario.“For the rest, we’re going to need to keep developing for tracks like China because there’s certain types of corner where our car really struggles right now and we need to keep moving forward in that sense.”
Pictures: Ferrari at Imola
This weekend’s race sees the first appearance of Ferrari’s car in its regular livery since the team agreed a new title sponsorship deal with Hewlett-Packard. The SF-24s ran in a special, part-blue livery in the previous race at Miami.
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Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
16th May 2024, 19:02
Hmmmm…..
Ferrari copying Red Bull design?
I wonder who is advising them!
Mr B
16th May 2024, 20:47
Newey appears to have signed for Ferrari quicker than I thought!
notagrumpyfan
17th May 2024, 7:03
Maybe rather than signing on the dotted line he drew his signature (design) ;)
osnola
16th May 2024, 20:27
Interesting… but only time will tell if copying the RB without changing the cooling system to the same degree ( almost impossible to do during a season) will deliver the desired results.. If the temp goes up it could well result in serious engine problems. So a cold italy will help them i guess.
But we will see.
As i understand RBR will inroduce a rather large update too. So the battle is on.
MacLeod (@macleod)
17th May 2024, 7:59
Cool italy isn’t in Ferrari favour that means Red Bull can uses it’s full power as they were racing with limited engine modes due heating problems.
Dex
16th May 2024, 21:07
So why would they want to hire Newey? This way RB pays him, but he works for both teams. It seems more prudent to me. You get a late release, but without R&D costs (this is how they rebuilt China). Him leaving RB is their loss too (either a total loss of he retires from F1, or a loss measured in millions of euros).
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
16th May 2024, 21:29
Hamilton is probably more pleased to see Ferrari improve as Leclerc and Sainz are.
Kerry Maxwell (@kerrymaxwell)
16th May 2024, 21:34
What’s Keith Moon doing behind the wheel?
Mark Thomson (@melthom)
16th May 2024, 23:45
Singing “The Magic Bus”
AlexS
17th May 2024, 3:44
Note that vertical inlet was ferrari idea that other copied including Red Bull.