Ferrari has brought an “evolution” of its most recent floor update to its home race in Italy as it continues to address the bouncing issues that have hampered the team in recent races.
The new floor is in addition to the usual low downforce front and rear wing packages that like all teams Ferrari has brought to Monza.
Senior performance engineer Jock Clear stressed that the floor update is not specific to the Italian track.
“It is an evolution, it’s not all new,” said Clear. “And we hope, it’ll lend itself to the rest of the races. That area of it is not specifically a Monza floor. And yes, so therefore it is just a further development on the same theme.
“As I say, the floor here is not a specific floor for this circuit, and it’s part of our core development.
“So we’re confident that that it’ll work at all circuits, and we will carry on this theme further down. Obviously, rear wings, front wings are all Monza spec.”
Clear suggested that the data already shows that the new floor will be beneficial at circuits beyond Monza.
“We can’t come away from here and say, Okay, this floor worked really well in Monza, we’re confident it’s going to be perfect in Singapore,” he said.
“That comes back to the modelling we’re doing at the factory and having confidence in. because ultimately, you can’t develop your cars based on track testing, because we don’t do enough track testing these days, and that’s actually quite slow and quite inefficient, which is why the sport’s gone this way.
“So actually, our models that we’re working on back at the factory are what we base our core development on.”
Clear said that while Monza is an important race the budget cap and ATR mean that a limited amount of resource can be devoted to the low-drag spec.
“There are very few low downforce circuits,” he said. “So it’s not the kind of area where you spend week after week trying to find more efficient solutions. And you’ve got to tailor your resources to bang for the buck, so to speak.
“And with only one race falling into this category, really, and you’ve got to be careful you don’t spend too much time working on the Monza setup. Obviously, Monza is super important to Ferrari, so maybe we spend a little bit more time than others trying to get the car just right for Monza. It’s still only worth 25 points.
Confronto delle ali posteriori del 2023 e il 2024
“So as I say, we have to be careful. But the challenge really is downforce and drag are pretty much mutually exclusive. You can look at it that anytime you’re going to put downforce on the car, it’s going to come with a little bit of drag. And obviously this circuit doesn’t like drag. But all corners like downforce.
“It’s not a case of just getting the car to be minimum drag, because then you will just be slow around the corners, however much you may cut down the straights, and that’s where the tools, over the course of the last 18 months have led you to what sort of trade-off you can live with.”
