Explained: Ferrari's ambitious upgrades for the SF-23 in Barcelona

With the Spanish Grand Prix, F1 arrives at a dedicated permanent track for the first time since Bahrain, the season opener. Due to the nature of the Circuit de Catalunya, teams often bring considerable upgrade packages to be implemented on the car since, as it is well-known that if teams perform well in Barcelona, they have a great chance of achieving strong performances at many of the remaining tracks in the calendar.

One team that has brought many upgrades to Catalunya this year is Ferrari, who have arrived with an overhaul of the car’s aerodynamic philosophy. The Prancing Horse has been a very inconsistent car, with its handling changing dramatically when the parameters under which the car is run change. To start tackling these issues, the Maranello-based team have brought an array of upgrades to Barcelona.

Sidepod

The modifications to the sidepods are drastic. The most noticeable one is the extrication of the bathtub area running along the sidepods, which characterised the Ferrari cars from last year to the present. Instead, they have chosen to go with a mixture of the RB19 and the A05.

The SF-23 now has channels running along the innermost side. And along the centre, they have decided to go for a flat surface area which should provide the upper rear of the car with clean, unaffected airflow, highlighting the previous version of the SF-23’s inability to work the airflow at the upper rear of the car in the way they hoped they would.

The side of the car has very subtle lines, all leading toward the bottom of the rear. With this, the Maranello-based team are looking to increase the downforce levels at the rear of the car because, with this design, they are looking to feed the diffuser with as much airflow as possible.

These profound changes are aiming to help Ferrari tackle an unstable rear, something that has hindered them for the entirety of the return to the ground effect era since 2022, aggravating already profound issues with tyre wear, instability and unpredictable behaviour, undoubtedly constricting the team’s freedom when setting up the car.

The Floor

At the rear of the floor, there are many changes. Ferrari have added an inlet at the back of the car where the stay is, and they have also increased the height where the bracket of the stay is. This is a significant upgrade with which Ferrari are hoping it sends a small portion of the airflow towards the bottom of the rear of the car.
But the vanes, cuts and surface levels in this section of the floor are evidence of the Maranello-based team’s ambitions to launch the air upward in the form of vortices to distribute them around the middle and upper sections of the rear of the car.

With this, Ferrari are looking to provide the SF-23 with a more effective use and distribution of the airflow, helping the car broaden its operative window and also support it with a much more predictable and docile behaviour when on the limit.

Other adjustments

Ferrari have brought two rear-wing configurations to Barcelona. The first configuration has a single pillar that should provide less drag and higher top speeds but a bit less downforce. The second configuration has more camber at the top part of the rear wing, which should generate more downforce, but also more drag, with a slight increase in drag also expected as a result, as it is upheld by two pillars, not just one.

With the aggressive changes Ferrari have made to their sidepods and floor, the Italians are certainly hoping to have increased the downforce levels substantially, which may allow them to run the first configuration without losing hardly any downforce. Of course, running a one-pillar rear wing is not easy, and the Ferrari engineers have to ensure that the capacity of the structure supporting the wing will balance the tremendous forces it will experience.

The rearview mirror housing structure has also been shortened, exposing the edges of the mirrors’ structural body. The aggressive wing mirror design is also telling, since not only are Ferrari looking to divert as much air as possible from the rear tyres, trying to reduce the high levels of tyre wear the Ferrari cars have suffered since the implementation of the new regulations in 2022.

Ferarri's new rearview mirror structure is also there to drastically direct the airflow toward the channel running along the innermost side of the sidepods. The aggression of this design may increase drag, but it shows just how much Ferrari are looking to change the way their car relates to, uses, and distributes the airflow around it. Ferarri's new upgrades showcase an ambitious bid to try and close the gap as quickly as they can to Red Bull as the Maranello team try to capitalise on the Austrian team’s development penalty this season.