Scuderia Ferrari SF90

[f1316]

I expect Ferrari poles but I'm not sure about race wins. Their race pace has been very poor compared to Mercedes and Red Bull.

It’s true that they’ve generally had worse race pace, but also that when on pole they’ve had the opportunity to win the race - Bahrain, Canada and Austria could all have been wins with optimal execution (e.g. respectively: reliability, errors, longer first stint on mediums).

But I do think it’s clear that the Ferrari engine modes used in quali are not there in the race - so wondering how much of this new engine is aimed at that. The wording of ‘better management of combustion’ could mean a lot of things, and the article speaks to reliability which also could mean running higher modes for longer. We’ll see, I guess.

[toraabe]

One thing is power. Another is power deliverance. Maybe it is not as drivable as Mb and Honda....

[Nonserviam85]

Ferrari had issues with fuel consumption they are focusing there atm.

[Just_a_fan]

Fuel economy is the thing to aim for once you've got the power sorted. Being able to make big figures for a few qualifying laps doesn't help if you can't make those figures in the race without running out of fuel.

[One and Only]

Fuel efficient ICE helps with downforce as well. More drag leads to higher fuel consumption.

[richardn]

Fuel efficient ICE helps with downforce as well. More drag leads to higher fuel consumption.

I don't think this is necessarily true in a formula1 race. It would be true at a constant speed, but the f1 cars aren't travelling at a constant speed. They basically travel as fast as they can at every given moment. On the straight, this is when when available power=drag. A draggier car with more downforce can go round the corners faster, so the less draggy car has to syphon off more of that kinetic energy to get round the corner, since harvest/deploy isn't 100% efficient it means the draggier car is actually more fuel efficient around a lap assuming the approaches equate to the same overall lap time.

[henry]

Fuel efficient ICE helps with downforce as well. More drag leads to higher fuel consumption.

I don't think this is necessarily true in a formula1 race. It would be true at a constant speed, but the f1 cars aren't travelling at a constant speed. They basically travel as fast as they can at every given moment. On the straight, this is when when available power=drag. A draggier car with more downforce can go round the corners faster, so the less draggy car has to syphon off more of that kinetic energy to get round the corner, since harvest/deploy isn't 100% efficient it means the draggier car is actually more fuel efficient around a lap assuming the approaches equate to the same overall lap time.

I tend to agree with your view.

My way of looking at it is that the most fuel efficient mode would be to travel constantly at the lap average speed. Every time you go below this speed you waste fuel accelerating to return to the average speed, the further you go above the average speed the more fuel you use pushing the air out of the way b

Of course the reality is a little more complex.

[Maplesoup]

Ferrari had issues with fuel consumption they are focusing there atm.

Any source on that?

[aral]

Yes, I know, F1 is on its mid term break, but that does not mean that threads should then go off-topic. Please have a look at the thread title before posting, and try to stay on topic

[Ringleheim]

I hope they use the remainder of the season to fully understood what has gone bad in the design and development in order to avoid to be in the same situation next year when the rules will be the same (and maybe the tyre will be changed again).
Moreover I wonder why in F1 teams do not develop high downforce and high efficiency packages, meaning that in F1 a high efficient car will be pretty in the same range of the efficiency vs downforce tradeoff for all the season and the same happens to high downforce cars. In wec they have two different aero packages that seems to me more different than F1 one. Once upon a time in F1 teams used different wheel bases for city tracks for example.

I have often wondered why they do not build 2 different cars myself. God knows they spend enough money, have the manpower to do it, and constantly screw around developing things enough to be able to do it.

Make 1 car with set of attributes A for half the tracks (roughly) and a second car with set of attributes B for the other half.

I am just afraid Ferrari will never understand what happened to this year's car! I hope they can put it all together before long.

[zibby43]

I hope they use the remainder of the season to fully understood what has gone bad in the design and development in order to avoid to be in the same situation next year when the rules will be the same (and maybe the tyre will be changed again).
Moreover I wonder why in F1 teams do not develop high downforce and high efficiency packages, meaning that in F1 a high efficient car will be pretty in the same range of the efficiency vs downforce tradeoff for all the season and the same happens to high downforce cars. In wec they have two different aero packages that seems to me more different than F1 one. Once upon a time in F1 teams used different wheel bases for city tracks for example.

I have often wondered why they do not build 2 different cars myself. God knows they spend enough money, have the manpower to do it, and constantly screw around developing things enough to be able to do it.

Make 1 car with set of attributes A for half the tracks (roughly) and a second car with set of attributes B for the other half.

I am just afraid Ferrari will never understand what happened to this year's car! I hope they can put it all together before long.

As evidenced by Ferrari's struggles this year, it's difficult enough to come up with 1 car, set that up correctly at all the circuits (so that it performs well in both qualifying and race trim), and then develop it effectively over the course of the season. The goal is to build a well-rounded car that will perform effectively at the vast majority of tracks. Mercedes has been knocking this approach out of the park in the hybrid era.

With the well-rounded car, you can make adjustments with slightly different packages tailored for more efficiency (Baku, Spa, Canada, Monza) or more downforce (Monaco, Hungary, Singapore).

[One and Only]

Fuel efficient ICE helps with downforce as well. More drag leads to higher fuel consumption.

I don't think this is necessarily true in a formula1 race. It would be true at a constant speed, but the f1 cars aren't travelling at a constant speed. They basically travel as fast as they can at every given moment. On the straight, this is when when available power=drag. A draggier car with more downforce can go round the corners faster, so the less draggy car has to syphon off more of that kinetic energy to get round the corner, since harvest/deploy isn't 100% efficient it means the draggier car is actually more fuel efficient around a lap assuming the approaches equate to the same overall lap time.

I see your point and it makes sense. Draggier car loses less kinetic energy in the corners, but it also hits full throttle as soon as it can (maybe even earlier due to more downforce). I don't think differences in cornering speeds are so big it makes much difference in fuel consumption. Any car spends fuel when you hit throttle to accelerate from speed x to speed y. As forces that try to keep car stationary increase you need more energy to overcome them.
But as someone said it's too complex to be certain about it.

[PlatinumZealot]

Drag is not ferrari's problem though. They still make more downforce than the midfield teams. They simply cannot make the same downforce as Mercedes or RedBul without messing up the balance of the car. In other words they have to go back to drawing board on their aero concept.

To illustrate; redbull claimed to design their 2019 contender with too little downforce having underestimated the progress Honda had made but, they were still able to greatly increase the dosnforce over the season while still keeping great balance.

[dren]

It was hinted earlier in the season that Ferrari would be limited with how much down force they could create with their front wing design. They can only add so much at the rear before the balance isn't ideal. We'll know for sure if they change their design for next year or even after the break.

[LM10]

It was hinted earlier in the season that Ferrari would be limited with how much down force they could create with their front wing design. They can only add so much at the rear before the balance isn't ideal. We'll know for sure if they change their design for next year or even after the break.

Why shouldn't they have changed the concept by now then? At the beginning of the season it was told that such a big change would take 3-4 months, but more than that past already. Not even Alfa with the most extreme version of that front wing went for a change.