Ferrari began the 2024 season the closest rivals to Red Bull Racing replacing Mercedes who had been number two in the pecking order last season. With nine podiums over the first eight races and a win each for Carlos Sainz, the Scuderia (252) were just 24 posts behind the world champions Red Bull (276).

Yet the upgrade the team brought in Barcelona after their 1-3 finish in Monaco has clearly failed though not for the obvious reasons often suggested. Correlation is often cited as a problem for Ferrari which sees the computer analyse the impact of upgrades in terms of incremental lap time, yet the upgrades brought in Spain achieved their purpose of adding downforce to the SF-24.

Over the past four races,. Charles Leclerc has just one points finish for a P5 in the Canadian Grand Prix. Team mate Carlos Sainz has faired better closing the gap to the Monegasque driver to just four points with a sixth place finish in Spain, a third place podium in Austria and a distant P5 at the recent British Grand Prix.

 

 

 

Ferrari points haul collapse

Yet the overall picture is grim for the Scuderia as their rivals have been piling on the points while the Ferrari duo struggle. Mercedes have scored 125 points since Monaco, McLaren 111 and championship leaders have collected a score of 97 in the same interval.

Carlos Sainz demanded he be allowed to run the old specification of car at the British Grand Prix and whilst reluctant at first, team boss Fred Vasseur finally agreed. Leclerc too reverted to the previous configuration of the SF-24 for FP3 though a disastrous qualifying saw him out in Q2 at Silverstone.

Leclerc had a race engineer forced upon him in Italy this season and it appears the relationship is yet developing given team radio at the British Grand Prix. Sainz was regularly appraised of the coming rain conditions, given times and levels of intensity including the corners which would be affected more greatly. Leclerc by way of contrast had much less to go on and decided to switch to wet weather tyres on the predictions he heard. It proved to be disastrous for the Ferrari driver given it was too early to make the change and Charles lost almost a complete pitstop amount of time while the rest of the field remained on slicks.

Ferrari’s problem with their upgraded package is similar to a situation Mercedes found themselves in last season. The new F1 ground effect cars which came into being in 2022 derive around 50% of their downforce from underfloor airflow management, called ‘ground effect.’

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Ferrari suspension the problem

Running the car lower to the track increases the pull of the airflow gluing the car to the asphalt, but should the cars run too low, then a bouncing effect is experienced. As the floor of the car touches the ground, the ‘air seal’ is broken and the car instantly rises as it loses downforce.

This happens repeatedly, often every second or so, on the bumpier circuits of which the high speed Silverstone is known to be one of. The solution which Red Bull aced in 2022, was designing a suspension system which could cope with damping down this ‘porpoising.’

In an interview this season, F1 car design guru Adrian Newey explained his only input into the new 2022 Red Bull F1 car design, was “the front end of the car and the suspension.” And there lies the secret to the world champions success, as they’ve barely suffered bouncing at all since the new regulations were introduced.

As Mercedes discovered the ‘bouncing’ is no easy fix, with Lewis Hamilton explaining their suspension for 2022 was a “baked in” component. When F1 cars are designed the suspension has a range of travel variables which have maximum parameters and hitting the buffers at either the upper or lower end is not an easily rectified problem.

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Worst of two choices to be made

So it could be Ferrari’s SF-24 is now suffering this and the team has a decision to make. They could plough on as Mercedes did with the increase in downforce upgrades, although their car cannot run low enough to take advantage of the increase in downforce.

The other plan would be to return to the pre-Barcelona car and find new ways to add downforce which works within the limits of the suspension travel.

Either way the team is set for a bleak immediate future and with back to back races coming to conclude to first part of the season before the summer break, time is in short supply.

Outgoing driver Carlos Sainz was candid in Silverstone claiming the team has lost “two or three months” of Formula 1 car development after reverting to its Imola specification for the British Grand Prix.

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Sainz claims “three months” lost

While Leclerc’s errors cost him dear, Sainz drove a solid race making tyre changes from wet to dry at exactly the right time. Such was the exact timing of the Spaniard’s switch of rubber he gained two seconds in one lap over eventual winner Lewis Hamilton.

Yet the Ferrari was just too slow overall and the gaping performance between Carlos and Lewis Hamilton was evident when the chequered flag fell. Sainz was some 47 seconds adrift of the winner and around 35 seconds behind Oscar Piastri, the driver immediately ahead.

“It is clearly not good enough,” Sainz acknowledged to Motorsport.com. “We have basically the same car as in Imola and since Imola everyone has upgraded, probably added two tenths to the car and we have had to revert.

“We have lost two or three months of performance gain in the wind tunnel or performance we could have added in these three months, so clearly we haven’t taken the right calls recently.

“I feel like today was at least back-to-basics, back to a car which was in Imola and we just need to upgrade it from here. But it is clear that our rivals are a good step ahead of us.”

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Grim forecast for Ferrari in Hungary

Sainz neither holds out much hope for the upcoming races in Hungary and Belgium which come before the August summer break.

“We will bounce in Turns 4 and 11 [in Hungary], but until something better comes we may have to live with bouncing for a while,” he explained.”

The Spaniard calls on the team to alternative the Imola floor with the new floor design, because on certain tracks the upgrade he predicts will be “undriveable.”

“I trust the team will make the right calls circuit-to-circuit until a more solid package, which is not bouncing in high-speed and good in low-speed, arrives and then we will start thinking about battling the top three teams again.” Carlos concludes.

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Ferrari P4 by Monza?

Whilst second in the constructors championship at present, given the scoring rate over the last four Grand Prix, Ferrari will be well behind McLaren by the time of their home Grand Prix in Monza and Mercedes will be in touching distance of their arch rivals, the Scuderia.

The irony for Lewis Hamilton is he’s ditched Mercedes for a future with Ferrari, but at present it looks as though the Brackley squad is on a far more upward trajectory, soon set to overtake the Italian F1 team. 

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Toyota in SHOCK F1 return for 2025

Much has been written about the Formula One rejection of the Andretti Racing application to become the 11th team on the grid, but a stealth takeover is underway by Toyota of an existing team. Haas were initially accepted by the FIA to join motorsport’s top table, but the commercial rights holder under pressure from the existing teas rejected the Americans’ application on a number of spurious grounds.

Andretti were in effect told to come back when the planned GM built new F1 powertrain would be ready estimated to be smoothie around 2028. The plan is the Cadillac will represent the GM brand but a proposal for Andretti to run with Renault power units badged as Cadillac in the interim was rejected… READ MORE