Scuderia Ferrari 2023

You're forgetting DRS. Imagine the F2003-GA with DRS and a wider floor that goes out to the rear tires.

 

Last year's run by Ralf Schumacher in his 2003 Williams was quite eye opening. It was on Pirelli demo tyres (pre insane width size), 3 seconds slower than todays cars. But the 2003 Williams was 100hp down on running top form, obviously wasn't set up, had an aging driver in there that barely did any racing in road cars let alone F1 cars and so on.

The DRS especially makes quite a difference for the setup, as current cars can run higher downforce than back then because they know it's more effective when they open up the DRS...

 

Back when the Ferrari F1 team knew what they were doing and the F2003GA was not their best car.

 

Bump, because I'm sick of seeing Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen threads at the top.

 

You mean 'these disastrous seasons'...

 

Ferrari dismisses Albon F1 link as it holds fire on driver contract talks
Ferrari has rubbished talk that Alex Albon is being lined up to replace Carlos Sainz for 2025, as it insists Formula 1 driver contracts are not a priority right now.

 

There is an interview with Vasseur, in Italian. Nothing terribly surprising but some notes: the car is unpredictable with cross wind, and both drivers use almost the same setup, so that debate about developing the car around this or that driver should not be relevant.

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-vasseur-ecco-la-ferrari-che-sto-costruendo-per-vincere/10496531/

 

Sounds like they should focus on specifics for LeClerc.

 

https://scuderiafans.com/laurent-mekies-responsibilities-in-ferrari-and-how-diego-ioverno-can-replace-him/?fbclid=IwAR3GM-OURfL765GAyeHzdxQq2mbeMUN5xmKdvd3xm63_VKyIZ-2OqwWHJ60


https://scuderiafans.com/ferrari-f1-organizational-chart-enrico-cardile-to-soon-be-appointed-as-technical-director/?fbclid=IwAR3sHxO6w6Vo1b_NbgpbQX2ZQxzun-IAcTH_gMMBhJ38mZkjbmBb_lrzP9I

 

Vasseur: Driver confidence now 'at the center of Ferrari's priorities'

https://f1i.com/news/481034-vasseur-driver-confidence-now-at-the-center-of-ferraris-priorities.html

Fred Vasseur says Ferrari's priority in the short term is to instill confidence in its drivers by stabilizing the performance of its SF-23.


Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have been vocal about the inconsistent behaviour of their car this season. Coupled with a lack of performance, the SF-23's characteristics made for a challenging start to the Scuderia's 2023 campaign.

An upgrade package introduced last month in Spain helped boost Ferrari's pace, but a significant degree of inconsistency remains embedded in the Italian outfit's machine.

Ironing out that instability and strengthening Leclerc and Sainz's confidence in their mount to fully exploit the car's performance improvements is now a priority for Ferrari's engineers.

"It wasn't just a question of pure performance, because something happened that affected the drivers' confidence in the car," explained Vasseur.

"When you enter a corner and you have a loss of load aerodynamic, it also causes a loss of balance. Therefore, you start to feel understeer. Add the wind, from one lap to the next which is never the same, and never has the same intensity, and the difficulties add up.

"We don't have performance stability. So lap after lap we lose a little performance from our drivers, because they never have the same conditions and they lose confidence in the car.

"We have to try to put the drivers more at the centre of our priorities. It isn't the easiest or even the fastest way [to progress] because it would be much easier to add downforce everywhere.

"But it happens that from one weekend to the next we have very different performances. We have good sensations in one Grand Prix while, in the next, it can happen that we do badly."

 

Loic Serra, Mercedes Performance Director joined Ferarri. His profile is similar to Pierre Waché, but not as complete! Both Binotto & Vassur approached Waché but failed. Vassuer brought in "second/third tier" engineers from RB through Mekies negotiation.

 

An excellent score for Ferrari! Serra has been an important figure at Mercedes for many year, and was apart of their dream team with Costa, Owen, Cowell, and Bell.

It's a good start.

 

Absolutely. They should be proud about this signing for sure.

 

In other words, they don't understand the difference between wind tunnel and real life.

 

So this means they do not understand aero and the simulator also has problems

 

+1 - how long before they say 'correlation' issue lol. Maybe this weekend in BUD things will go smoother.

 

I believe it’s been confirmed. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a turnaround.

 

I definitely wouldn't allow DRS to be used to compare the old vs new, obviously. DRS is a gimmick that unfortunately appears to be with us for a long time, although I have to admit it has added excitement at times. Optimized and updated, I think the 2003-GA would be quite spiffy vs the newer cars on many tracks.

 

My comment is this, Binotto was "dismissed" after the 2022 season, where at least the team was competitive, frankly time has run its course for this new team boss. What exactly did he accomplish at Alfa Romeo?

This season is perhaps one of the most dire for Ferrari, the car is simply not competitive but worse than that they have gone from having arguably the second quickest car in 2022 to being leapfrogged by McLaren who who lets face it started the season with one of the worst cars.

This season feels like the the late 1980's seasons.

 

John Elkann doesn't expect any result before 2026, remember ?

 

Yes, agreed. Sad as it is to say, I'd be very surprised to see Ferrari get another podium this year. Once again its a case of "well lets work on next years car" but for me the entire ethos of F1 has to be called into question when seemingly we are now in Red Bull phase after a long Mercedes phase, both phases really took place because of rule changes and no team has really been able to develop their car enough to catch up due to a cost limitation and lack of testing.

I do not believe that suddenly Mercedes and McLaren are as quick as Red Bull, the ease at which Perez could overtake suggests RB are still significantly faster.