The Ferrari team has a car capable of winning the title at the end of the 2022 season, something that has been shown in the first three rounds despite the fact that it has not yet introduced any major updates to the F1-75 since the tests in February.
Italian team boss Mattia Binotto made it clear after the Australian Grand Prix that there would be no major changes for some time, and that they had opted to reserve something for the next race at Imola.
This is because the Emilia Romagna GP will be a sprint race weekend, meaning there will only be a one-hour free practice session before qualifying, leaving few options to test the new components.
However, the head of the Maranello has suggested that they will introduce some small adjustments aimed at helping to combat the porpoising problems that they still suffer.
“We will try to mitigate the setbacks that we still have,” Binotto said. “I’m thinking about the porpoising and rebound that has affected our performance over the weekend.”
“We will go back to work on that specific point, but for significant improvements, we will have to wait for later in the season,” revealed the Italian leader after achieving victory in Australia.
The short-term focus appears to be on the design of the diffuser, which was tested on Charles Leclerc’s car during early free practice in Melbourne.
The modifications appear in the rear section, as it rises from this area to the impact structure, where the team has included a bulge in the central part. The objective of these changes is to help the stability of the rear region of the car, although this translates into sacrificing volume, which is expected to revise the geometry to increase downforce in certain situations to improve the rebound effect.
Once the team has been able to collect this data on the new design they put on the track in Australia, the modified diffuser could be applied to both cars for the next rounds.
Ferrari F1-75 front wing detail
Meanwhile, in Carlos Sainz’s car, last weekend at Albert Park, Ferrari installed optical height sensors at each end and in the center of the front wing.
To further increase the data collection capacity, a pair of cameras were added to capture images of the endplate flexing , with stickers not seen in this photograph, but acting as a reference point when studying the recordings.
The team also sprayed the rear wing of the world leader’s car with the famous wax during the free practice session to visually confirm that the modifications worked.
