What’s going wrong at Ferrari? Downward spiral opens door for Mercedes

Following another tough race weekend, it’s evident that Ferrari is facing a slump in both form and performance.

Once a team that seemed capable of challenging the front-runners, Ferrari’s fortunes have taken a nosedive since Leclerc’s triumphant home victory in Monaco. Let’s delve into Ferrari’s journey from that high point, examining the upgrades they’ve introduced and the key factors contributing to their current struggles.

The season’s start and early upgrades

Ferrari began the season strong, emerging as the primary team capable of challenging Max Verstappen and the Red Bull squad in the initial races.

With a bit of luck, Ferrari secured a victory in Australia, the third race of the season. From then on, their form remained solid, with just a slight gap between them and Red Bull’s race pace.

Monaco, a track that suits Ferrari’s characteristics, saw them win due to excellent car performance and team organisation. However, from that point, their fortunes began to decline.

Ferrari’s best weekend of the season came with the debut of the SF-24’s B version in Monaco. The car featured completely redesigned sidepods, sidepod inlets, and a new rear wing, adopting Red Bull’s overbite sidepod inlet geometry philosophy.

As we analysed earlier, this concept allows for much cleaner airflow over the upper surface of the sidepods, which can be efficiently directed to critical aerodynamic elements like the diffuser and beam wing.

How you manage this region of the car significantly affects the front end and especially the area under the car.

This weekend also marked the first introduction of a new rear wing after using the old design for the previous seven races. The high-downforce rear wing suited the slow Monaco track, and things worked well.

After the Monaco race, it seemed Ferrari was on the right track and poised to be a main threat to Red Bull in the upcoming races. However, the next race in Montreal showed the opposite.

Key insights into the Austrian Grand Prix

👉Austrian GP conclusions: Verstappen vs Norris, Adrian Newey theory, valuable Russell lesson

👉Austrian GP data: How Max Verstappen lost the race and the Lando Norris effect

Ferrari’s struggles to find performance

Although both drivers were unlucky in Canada and failed to finish the race, it was evident that Ferrari struggled with the right car setup. One of the main issues was the slow tyre warm-up and a very unstable rear end, costing them significant time on a track like Canada.

Barcelona was the next race on the calendar, where we expected to see the true performance not only of Ferrari but of other teams as well. Ferrari’s engineers prepared another upgrade package building on the one from Monaco. The most noticeable changes were on the sidepods and the undercut region beneath them.

Thanks to Vanja from F1tech forum, I don't have to sit and tediously scroll through images to make comparisons, instead I got permission to use the one he made. So, a very big thank you to him!

First and foremost, we look at the most obvious changes, that is the reduced SP… pic.twitter.com/k1QDn16vtR

— brandon (@brakeboosted) June 21, 2024

Already by then, it was clear that downforce and rear-end balance were what Ferrari lacked. The upgrades aimed to allow more efficient airflow to critical aerodynamic parts around the diffuser and rear suspension.

Unfortunately, these changes didn’t yield positive results. Performance-wise, Ferrari found themselves not just behind Red Bull but also behind McLaren and Mercedes.

A telling fact was that during the Spanish qualifying, Ferrari’s drivers applied the least throttle in the final corner compared to the aforementioned teams.

The lack of rear downforce and poor car balance had become significant issues. Additionally, the drivers struggled with quickly warming up the tyres at the race start, and overall race pace with high fuel levels was problematic.

The agony continued the following weekend in Austria at the Red Bull Ring. It seemed Ferrari was battling the same problems since Canada, with no visible progress.

The short time between races during this period left engineers with insufficient time to understand and solve the issues. New aerodynamic upgrades often trigger a chain reaction affecting various other car areas, and managing them directly influences on-track performance.

Is Ferrari still in the fight for the top?

After 11 races in the Formula 1 championship, Ferrari sits second in the constructors’ standings, trailing Red Bull by 64 points. Given that we’re not yet halfway through the 2024 season, there’s still plenty of time for changes, and Ferrari is definitely still in the championship race.

What the team needs most is time to understand the root of their problems and methodically work towards resolving them. The SF-24 is a fantastic car with great potential and a strong foundation that can be further developed.

Currently, it seems the engineers are struggling to translate new aerodynamic upgrades effectively to the wheels.

This suggests that the suspension system may be disrupting the harmony between the necessary systems for optimal performance. In other words, the downforce is present, but the way the force transfers to the wheels is not optimal.

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