The thrilling and close victory in Monza may have misled all Tifosi into believing that the performance exhibited two weeks ago was solely due to the track layout and the flawless plan implemented by Ferrari’s engineers.
However, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend provided a completely different scenario from the start,
with a very competitive SF-24 both in qualifying and during the race, finishing behind only Piastri’s MCL38. Ferrari is taking steps forward again, just as Lewis Hamilton prepares for his arrival in 2025.
The package introduced at the Italian Grand Prix appeared to have made the car more balanced and competitive, and the performance in Baku somewhat supports this claim.
“Old solutions” to get the car moving ahead
During the Italian Grand Prix weekend, the team led by Fred Vasseur unveiled the season’s final major package, which addressed a critical component of these ground-effect cars: the floor.
The floor of F1 cars is a modular piece, which means that it is divided into different “modules,” including floor fences, floor edge, floor ceiling/boat section, and diffuser, that can be dismantled and replaced (both in case of damage and in case of new solutions that must be fitted to the car), rather than having to produce a new entire floor, which would be extremely expensive for the budget cup. As a result, teams typically bring only one or two new floors per season, while the rest of the time they only update one or a few of these modules.
In Monza, Ferrari introduced a completely new floor that was improved in all modules, along with some minor changes to the lower half of the sidepod.
It is hardly surprising, then, that both of these components have also been updated. The lower half of the sidepod has been excavated further to create more space and improve the air channel towards the car’s rear end. The floor edge is flatter in the final half than the previous version, and it has a “cut” in the central portion, both of which are important for better preserving the vortex structures that serve to seal off the bottom (orange arrow). In addition, new metal supports (perhaps lighter) have appeared in this region. They are situated at a larger distance from each other to help regulate the flexing of this area of the floor in rapid corners and low ride.
Finally, a completely new diffuser appeared on the SF-24 at Monza: while the previous version had a central keel with two lateral slides (with a design very similar to the one introduced by Mercedes on the W15 at Spa-Francorchamps), the new version has an almost pointed tail end of the boat section, with the keel starting at a higher height than the previous version (pink arrows).
An interesting idea behind these upgrades is that Ferrari decided to recall some old solutions to make the SF-24 step forward and overcome the proposing issues faced with the Spanish Grand Prix package: the cut at mid-length in the floor edge is very similar to some old 2022 floor edge solutions (when teams cut the floor edge, giving up a bit of downforce to limit porpoising), while the keel of the diffuser that appeared on the SF-24 in Monza recalls a very similar design.
But why has Ferrari decided to develop these “old ideas” to increase the performance of its current model? The solution must be discovered in how the floor functions and the limiting elements that affect downforce generation.
