Ferrari’s Jock Clear says that a front wing upgrade introduced on the Ferrari SF-24 at the Singapore GP will help to find a balance at higher downforce levels.
The third and fourth wing elements have been modified, with the Italian team’s official FIA presentation submission saying that the update was not specific to the Singapore circuit and “offers performance and downstream flow features improvements over a wider polar range.”
Clear says that the change will enable Ferrari to add front downforce when needed at a track where the rear wing runs to the maximum.
“Obviously is Singapore not the obvious circuit where you would bring an aero upgrade,” he said.
“It’s a sort of very draggy, high downforce circuit. Basically it’s just moving the energy a little bit inboard. So if you look at it closely, you’ll see that the inboard is a bit more aggressive, and the outboard is a bit less aggressive.
“So you’ve moved that dynamic a bit. It allows us to actually crank on a bit more, which here, you’re probably going to want, because you’ve got maximum rear downforce, and you’re going to want to get a balance.
“And balance is everything around here. And we’ve been a little bit backed into a corner at some of the high downforce circuits before, because we’re running out of front power, basically.
“So it’s just a little bit more powerful at the top end, slightly more efficient, marginally. But it’s the fact that it’s a little bit more powerful at the top end that gives us a bit more scope.”
Ferrari has shown good form in recent races following a blip when a new floor introduced in Spain didn’t work as planned.
Asked if Ferrari is now confident that it is back on track Clear said: “You’re never fully confident. I think it’s a good picture on how the ebb and flow of everybody’s development goes.
“Because actually you were probably asking the same questions to McLaren a year ago, or to Mercedes four months ago, or to Red Bull now. Have you lost your way? And certainly, after, after Spain, we didn’t feel we’d lost our way, but there was some anomaly between what was happening in the tunnel, and what we were seeing on track.
“And we had to get on top of that. But that’s just the process. And I think if you looked at it the time, you might say it looks like your process isn’t working. That is the process, is that when you see an anomaly, you have to get on top of it, try and understand it, and then get back on track.
“And I think what you’ve seen since is that we’ve understood it, we got back on track. We just have to be eyes wide open for what the next anomaly will be, because there will be another one, because that is the process at the moment.”
Clear stressed that it’s not always easy to get it right.
“It’s not that sometimes these developments work, sometimes these developments don’t work. The development process is exactly that. You are testing something new every week.
“And tunnels at the moment, with the technology we have, they don’t have the ability to model everything perfectly, and maybe 20-30 years in future, will be much better equipped.
“But at the moment, there are differences between what you see in the tunnel and what you see on track, and that therein lies the quality of the driver.”
“That’s where the drivers that are really good make a difference. Because when you see a development path in a team that’s actually making good progress, and when they slip back a bit, they get on top of it, and they make progress, that’s what the drivers bring to the party.”
