Mark Hughes watches how Ferrari upgraded its 2021 Ferrari SF21 to improve it well over its 2020 predecessor – the SF1000 – after a Hungarian Grand Prix that saw Carlos Sainz take a podium for the team. Giorgio Piola provides technical illustrations.
Ferrari missed a real chance to fight for victory in Hungary given the chaos on the first corner that took a Mercedes, two Red Bulls and a McLaren out of the race and indirectly caused Lewis Hamilton to fade into the background.
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On a day when Charles Leclerc was also out, with victory being fought between an Alpine and an Aston Martin, Ferrari could be frustrated that their only remaining Carlos Sainz car was behind Nicholas Latifi’s third-placed Williams for much of the first stint . Had it not been for that, Ferrari might have scored a win to add to its pole position streak in 2021, underscoring its great strides since last year and the effectiveness of upgrading the SF21 over the previous SF1000.
More details about the car are now known than at the beginning of the season and it becomes clear how much innovation has gone into the upgrade despite the homologation restrictions that limited development from last season to this season through a token system.
Charles Leclerc was disfellowshipped after contact with Lance Stroll in Round 1 of the Hungarian Grand Prix
This token system limited the number of major changes that could be made and, in the case of Ferrari, effectively gave them the choice of making major structural changes to the front of the car or to the rear.
Ideally, they would have changed both as their rear suspension and aerodynamics as well as their nose shape aerodynamics had a lot of room for improvement. But the token system didn’t allow that, so Ferrari focused on where it felt the bigger limitation was – the stern.
The decisive factor for this was a new gearbox that swings further back than before – and is also inclined upwards. Due to the longer housing, the rear suspension could be swiveled backwards, similar to the Mercedes 2020, which created more space around the diffuser for aerodynamic use.
The token system meant Ferrari couldn’t build the suspension into the crash structure – as Mercedes had – but instead stretched the transmission much further back (down) to achieve the same effect.
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The drive side of the gearbox peeps out of the carbon fiber sheathing at the front. Due to the slight upward slope, the floor could be raised more (yellow lines), creating more air flow around the diffuser. This has increased the height of the differential (yellow cross marks the height of the drive shaft on the differential) which requires heavily angled drive shafts.
By tilting the gearbox slightly upwards, the differential moved up a decisive centimeter, creating deeper side channels in the same aerodynamically powerful area around the diffuser.
This increased differential is expected to be a standard feature on all 2022 vehicles due to the placement of the powerful ground effect venturis that extend from the front of the floor. Aerodynamicists will be interested in maximizing the ramp angle of these Venturis, and an increased differential will make this easier, although it will increase the center of gravity height.
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At the front, Ferraris were limited by their unfashionable broad nose. Mercedes switched to a slim nose in 2017, Red Bull made a similar change in 2020. The slim nose allows the cape under the nose to direct the airflow towards the bargeboards much earlier. The earlier it can be rotated, the less it will come loose and the more precisely it can be directed towards the various wings that accelerate the air.
The Ferrari has a unique double cap arrangement under the nose, with the upper cape directing the air towards the bargeboards, the lower one (highlighted in yellow) helping to accelerate the flow directly to the sub-floor.
The broad nose tends to have a ‘dead zone’ underneath where the air is not supplied with energy. Ferrari has tried to minimize this by adding a second smaller cloak under the main cloak (above), which seems to direct air directly into the sub-floor at greater speed. The faster the airflow under the ground, the greater the downforce.
Ferrari may have been limited in the makeover of its mediocre 2020 car, but has shown great ingenuity within those limits. Which is a positive sign for 2022 when a completely new car for the revised regulations is brought out next year.
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