2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[SB15]

Carbone Industrie brakes fitted to Charles' car

Charles is playing with fire here... Not sure he's the experimenting type of driver to do this..

I am still not convinced that Brembo isn't the sole supplier to Ferrari. These photos don't prove anything because the disks are quite similar nowadays.

In the 2010's they had telling hole patterns... But i don't think this is the case today.

Here you go! Some quote from both drivers. Charles is definitely learning from lewis, you can't be quiet when change is needed. He needs to speak up. Lewis has brought the steering wheel and now brakes to Ferrari. I am sure it wasn't easy knowing how Ferrari operates

I don't know who's more deflated? Brembo because they're a trusted supplier, or Leclerc who's discovering just how much of an impact Lewis is having on the team after he just signed a contract with Ferrari...

[venkyhere]

I dont know how much of this is true but maybe those with more engine knowledge chime in

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-fe ... /10829196/

Ferrari insists on a 'hot' engine. The photo taken by AG Foto in the Barcelona garages is as eloquent as ever: the heat exchanger on the SF-26 is less than half the size of Red Bull's. On both cars, the designers have placed the intercoolers above the turbocharged 6-cylinder engine, but the large difference in the volume of each component is striking

The Scuderia, as we had the opportunity to anticipate, has homologated the 067/6 engine, which is able to operate with an intake air temperature of around 100 degrees, while all other units run at values between 60 and 80 degrees.

At Maranello, they developed this innovative concept thanks to the steel alloy cylinder head which, compared to aluminium, is capable of operating with a combustion chamber pressure significantly higher than the competition. The project carried out by Enrico Gualtieri's team is very bold, as well as revolutionary. It is a development path that will not be abandoned with the upgrades that will be brought to the track through the ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities).

According to rumours, the engine that should make its debut at the Austrian GP with the first upgrade permitted by the FIA will significantly increase the temperature of the air entering the intercooler: figures of between 110 and 115 degrees are being mentioned. The goal, in fact, is to improve combustion chamber efficiency by halving the power gap compared to the reference unit: for Maranello, that is the Mercedes W17 E Performance engine, while according to FIA data the most powerful internal combustion engine would be the Red Bull Powertrains Ford DM01.

Either way, on both fronts the gap is around 25 horsepower, and the hope is to reduce the difference to no more than 10 horsepower — to be potentially closed with the second ADUO upgrade — provided the governing body doesn't change its mind following Red Bull's repeated protests, as they do not consider themselves the benchmark at all, given they are running an engine in its debut season in F1.

Ferrari, being able to exploit the characteristics of the 'hot' engine, has made significant concessions to the chassis and aerodynamics teams: the cooling system, requiring less heat exchange to stay within safe reliability ranges, has been designed with smaller radiating masses, which help enable more aggressive aerodynamic shapes. The SF-26 is the only car to feature a triangular airbox without the ears on the sides of the roll hoop."

The FTM system with the flap that allows the hot exhaust gases to be blown also benefits from the advantages provided by the steel alloy head: with the 'plug' active, around 7 horsepower are lost, but the drop in power must be adequately compensated by the increased aerodynamic downforce generated through improved rear wing efficiency and extraction of air from the diffuser.

What I understood as the general philosophy of Ferrari with the SF26 :
Going for a worse IAT, subsequently resulting in a hotter-than-typical ECT and EGT, and "winning on the packaging front for better aero" , the backpressure from covering half the exhaust "for better aero" - both of which penalize raw power output from the ICE.

Pardon me for the noob question :
1) How exactly is increasing IAT even more, going to win back some of the sacrificed horsepower from 'better combustion chamber efficiency' ?
2) what the hell is this counter-intuitive philosophy of sacrificing engine power for better aero, in the first place ?

Hoping that atleast one expert member in this forum will kindly help a noob like me wrap my head around the above two Qs.

[dans79]

2) what the hell is this counter-intuitive philosophy of sacrificing engine power for better aero, in the first place ?

Drag is proportional to velocity squared, so for every car their is a point where reducing drag is better than just adding more power.

edit a simple reference/example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(phy ... g_equation

[sucof]

What I understood as the general philosophy of Ferrari with the SF26 :
Going for a worse IAT, subsequently resulting in a hotter-than-typical ECT and EGT, and "winning on the packaging front for better aero" , the backpressure from covering half the exhaust "for better aero" - both of which penalize raw power output from the ICE.

Pardon me for the noob question :
1) How exactly is increasing IAT even more, going to win back some of the sacrificed horsepower from 'better combustion chamber efficiency' ?
2) what the hell is this counter-intuitive philosophy of sacrificing engine power for better aero, in the first place ?

Hoping that atleast one expert member in this forum will kindly help a noob like me wrap my head around the above two Qs.

If you run your engine hotter you loose a few HP, but then you can design a cooling and chassis that has less drag. If you do your job well, you will gain back more virtual HP with the chassis than you lost with the engine.
The same goes for the blown rear wing. You loose 7HP from the engine, but if that makes your rear wing more efficient, you can run a smaller rear wing, and if you did your math well, the smaller rear wing will be so much less draggy like you had a 9HP more powerful engine. So you won 2 virtual HorsePower

[LM10]

The FTM on the SF-26 is not a simple add on like on others cars. The entire rear end was designed with it in mind and even the engine operates in a way which increases the effect of the FTM.

Sadly, the Federation of Incompetence and Absurdity will ban it for next season.

[.poz]

I dont know how much of this is true but maybe those with more engine knowledge chime in

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-fe ... /10829196/

The article is by Nugnes, so take it with a pinch of salt.

[venkyhere]

Drag is proportional to velocity squared, so for every car their is a point where reducing drag is better than just adding more power.

edit a simple reference/example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(phy ... g_equation

If you run your engine hotter you loose a few HP, but then you can design a cooling and chassis that has less drag. If you do your job well, you will gain back more virtual HP with the chassis than you lost with the engine.
The same goes for the blown rear wing. You loose 7HP from the engine, but if that makes your rear wing more efficient, you can run a smaller rear wing, and if you did your math well, the smaller rear wing will be so much less draggy like you had a 9HP more powerful engine. So you won 2 virtual HorsePower

the relationship b/w 'power' and Cd is linear, isn't it ? Why bring in v^3 into this tradeoff ? Any reduction in Cd by a factor of 'k' is going to result in the increase of v by a factor of cubrt(x) ONLY if the engine power remains the same, but that's not true, is it, since engine power is going to reduce, actually, since it's cooling drag. And that reduction is going to be non-linear w.r.t the engine operating temperature.

This idea that 'more can be gained from lower cooling drag than what is lost for engine power' hinges solely on --> sacrificing cooling area (and hence the Cd) by a factor of 'k', should win back virtual horsepower by a factor of 'k', whilst losing actual horsepower by a factor of less than 'k', in a non-linearity zone. Does it actually happen that way ?

I am sure the F1 engineers know their tradeoffs much much better than an internet troll like me, and that if that's how it actually happens, they would have surely gone for it. My doubt is, how much can we trust the media report saying that is indeed the case, when 9 other teams didn't make this IAT/ECT/EGT sacrifice ? Surely they must have evaluated those tradeoffs, wouldn't they have ?

Hence my doubt, I would rather think Ferrari did the packaging-instead-of-power sacrifice (if at all this higher temps conjecture is true) for the sake of more downforce (which can result in quicker corners and better tyre life) rather than just 'less drag'.

Also, not to forget, this is about (2) in my set of two questions, what about (1) ? That's seems like the king of counter intuitiveness.

[f1316]

In my opinion, the real problem with ADUO is that no one (principally the FIA but also the teams who were heavily involved) learned the right lesson from the last rules cycle.

The problem with the original hybrids was that there was a silly token system which more or less locked in Mercedes’ advantage - they eventually had to scrap that entirely because it was the only way for other teams to catch up and make the racing interesting.

Ok, they wanted to avoid an all out spending wars, but missed that this is a solved problem: they have a budget (and resources) cap for engine development! This should be treated the same way as chassis development: bring whatever updates you want but you have to do it within the parameters set out in the caps. They’ve instead over engineered the horse and come up with a camel.

[mzso]

Changing brakes on a race car is a massive risk even for amateurs racing weekend track days. So much depends on pedal feel and just knowing where the ABS (not in f1) and traction limits are without locking that even an on paper upgrade can make you slower. Hopefully he tries it in FP1 and FP2 has a plan B to go back to the devil he knows (Brembo) for FP3 and quali if its not working the way the thought.

He's been driving around with malfunctioning brakes for two races. Ad who knows how much it sucked before.
It will be a relief for him.

I was under the impression he was switching just to CI disks, retaining Brembo calipers.

Doesn't everyone use Brembo calipers anyway?

[mzso]

I dont know how much of this is true but maybe those with more engine knowledge chime in

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-fe ... /10829196/

Ferrari insists on a 'hot' engine. The photo taken by AG Foto in the Barcelona garages is as eloquent as ever: the heat exchanger on the SF-26 is less than half the size of Red Bull's. On both cars, the designers have placed the intercoolers above the turbocharged 6-cylinder engine, but the large difference in the volume of each component is striking

The Scuderia, as we had the opportunity to anticipate, has homologated the 067/6 engine, which is able to operate with an intake air temperature of around 100 degrees, while all other units run at values between 60 and 80 degrees.

At Maranello, they developed this innovative concept thanks to the steel alloy cylinder head which, compared to aluminium, is capable of operating with a combustion chamber pressure significantly higher than the competition. The project carried out by Enrico Gualtieri's team is very bold, as well as revolutionary. It is a development path that will not be abandoned with the upgrades that will be brought to the track through the ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities).

According to rumours, the engine that should make its debut at the Austrian GP with the first upgrade permitted by the FIA will significantly increase the temperature of the air entering the intercooler: figures of between 110 and 115 degrees are being mentioned. The goal, in fact, is to improve combustion chamber efficiency by halving the power gap compared to the reference unit: for Maranello, that is the Mercedes W17 E Performance engine, while according to FIA data the most powerful internal combustion engine would be the Red Bull Powertrains Ford DM01.

Either way, on both fronts the gap is around 25 horsepower, and the hope is to reduce the difference to no more than 10 horsepower — to be potentially closed with the second ADUO upgrade — provided the governing body doesn't change its mind following Red Bull's repeated protests, as they do not consider themselves the benchmark at all, given they are running an engine in its debut season in F1.

Ferrari, being able to exploit the characteristics of the 'hot' engine, has made significant concessions to the chassis and aerodynamics teams: the cooling system, requiring less heat exchange to stay within safe reliability ranges, has been designed with smaller radiating masses, which help enable more aggressive aerodynamic shapes. The SF-26 is the only car to feature a triangular airbox without the ears on the sides of the roll hoop."

The FTM system with the flap that allows the hot exhaust gases to be blown also benefits from the advantages provided by the steel alloy head: with the 'plug' active, around 7 horsepower are lost, but the drop in power must be adequately compensated by the increased aerodynamic downforce generated through improved rear wing efficiency and extraction of air from the diffuser.

"It didn't pan out. Let's double down on it!"

[catent]

Charles is playing with fire here... Not sure he's the experimenting type of driver to do this..

I am still not convinced that Brembo isn't the sole supplier to Ferrari. These photos don't prove anything because the disks are quite similar nowadays.

In the 2010's they had telling hole patterns... But i don't think this is the case today.

Here you go! Some quote from both drivers. Charles is definitely learning from lewis, you can't be quiet when change is needed. He needs to speak up. Lewis has brought the steering wheel and now brakes to Ferrari. I am sure it wasn't easy knowing how Ferrari operates

I don't know who's more deflated? Brembo because they're a trusted supplier, or Leclerc who's discovering just how much of an impact Lewis is having on the team after he just signed a contract with Ferrari...

Why would Leclerc be deflated by Hamilton offering technical input? Leclerc stuck with the Brembos initially and has been quicker using them in every race since, with the exception of Montreal.

After experiencing issues at Montreal and Monaco, he's changing his configuration in an attempt to gain more confidence under braking.

This sort of tribal speculation fosters a very toxic climate/dialogue.

[dans79]

the relationship b/w 'power' and Cd is linear, isn't it ? Why bring in v^3 into this tradeoff ? Any reduction in Cd by a factor of 'k' is going to result in the increase of v by a factor of cubrt(x) ONLY if the engine power remains the same, but that's not true, is it, since engine power is going to reduce, actually, since it's cooling drag. And that reduction is going to be non-linear w.r.t the engine operating temperature.

This idea that 'more can be gained from lower cooling drag than what is lost for engine power' hinges solely on --> sacrificing cooling area (and hence the Cd) by a factor of 'k', should win back virtual horsepower by a factor of 'k', whilst losing actual horsepower by a factor of less than 'k', in a non-linearity zone. Does it actually happen that way ?

I am sure the F1 engineers know their tradeoffs much much better than an internet troll like me, and that if that's how it actually happens, they would have surely gone for it. My doubt is, how much can we trust the media report saying that is indeed the case, when 9 other teams didn't make this IAT/ECT/EGT sacrifice ? Surely they must have evaluated those tradeoffs, wouldn't they have ?

Hence my doubt, I would rather think Ferrari did the packaging-instead-of-power sacrifice (if at all this higher temps conjecture is true) for the sake of more downforce (which can result in quicker corners and better tyre life) rather than just 'less drag'.

Also, not to forget, this is about (2) in my set of two questions, what about (1) ? That's seems like the king of counter intuitiveness.

None of this stuff is linear, if it was teams wouldn't need CFD, and upgrades would work exactly as expected every time for every team. For something as aerodynamically complex as an F1 car even the Cd isn't constant, it varies with speed and yaw etc.

[dans79]

Why would Leclerc be deflated by Hamilton offering technical input? Leclerc stuck with the Brembos initially and has been quicker using them in every race since, with the exception of Montreal.

After experiencing issues at Montreal and Monaco, he's changing his configuration in an attempt to gain more confidence under braking.

This sort of tribal speculation fosters a very toxic climate/dialogue.

Because as much as some people want to claim F1 is a team sport, it really isn't for the drivers! The number on thing every driver wants to do is beat their teammate. If they don't they will likely find themselves out of a job. Being able to nudge the team in a development or implementation direction can give a driver an advantage.

[f1316]

Here you go! Some quote from both drivers. Charles is definitely learning from lewis, you can't be quiet when change is needed. He needs to speak up. Lewis has brought the steering wheel and now brakes to Ferrari. I am sure it wasn't easy knowing how Ferrari operates

I don't know who's more deflated? Brembo because they're a trusted supplier, or Leclerc who's discovering just how much of an impact Lewis is having on the team after he just signed a contract with Ferrari...

Why would Leclerc be deflated by Hamilton offering technical input? Leclerc stuck with the Brembos initially and has been quicker using them in every race since, with the exception of Montreal.

After experiencing issues at Montreal and Monaco, he's changing his configuration in an attempt to gain more confidence under braking.

This sort of tribal speculation fosters a very toxic climate/dialogue.

Exactly- if anything he should be happy to now have a teammate who has enough experience to develop the car better (from which Charles should still benefit).

It’s a shame he didn’t trust Lewis to begin with and especially after Canada when he already had problems - he was almost quick enough for pole with bad brakes, who knows what would have happened if he’d just had good ones (and now that once a season opportunity is gone). You’d think he’d at least have done a back to back on Friday.

[FittingMechanics]

Why would Leclerc be deflated by Hamilton offering technical input? Leclerc stuck with the Brembos initially and has been quicker using them in every race since, with the exception of Montreal.

After experiencing issues at Montreal and Monaco, he's changing his configuration in an attempt to gain more confidence under braking.

This sort of tribal speculation fosters a very toxic climate/dialogue.

If anything, Leclerc might be disappointed they didn't figure it out in previous years. Slightly faster car in 2024 means a Ferrari WCC.