Tech Preview | How Ferrari have dropped out of the fight at Silverstone

Silverstone: exciting but tough

The Silverstone Circuit is well known for being a beautiful and harsh track at the same time: on the one hand, the very fast sequence of Maggots-Becketts-Chapel, together with some other iconic corners like Stowe and Copse make the English circuit one of the most iconic of the whole calendar. 

On the other hand, the very high cornering speeds generate a lot of load and stress on the front tyres, making it extremely difficult for the front left to last both in qualifying and in the race. For this reason, Pirelli will bring the hardest set of tyres this weekend (C1, C2 and C3), allowing teams to plan a one-stop strategy for Sunday’s race. 

The weather will play a crucial role too: even though rain isn’t expected during important sessions, the very low temperatures will praise cars’ ability to warm up the tyres in qualifying and will also contribute in making them last longer during the race. 

All these factors could highly influence the trend of the weekend, moving the needle on the scale towards one team or another depending on the conditions. 

As a direct consequence, all teams usually choose a medium-low downforce wing set-up, as having a very efficient car on the long straights usually helps both in qualifying and during the race. However, it’ll be crucial for everyone to keep the tyres alive in the last sector, as a lot of difference is usually made in the Vale-Club complex during qualifying. 

McLaren with a very unloaded rear wing 

Having a look at the rear wing choice made by top teams this weekend, it’s not surprising that McLaren adopted a less loaded rear wing than their competitors: as underlined by Piastri in the usual Thursday interviews, “[...] there is some low-speed corners, which we've certainly made a strength in the last few races.” Mclaren is confident that, thanks to the recent upgrades they brought to their car, they’ll be quite strong in the slow speed.

As a consequence, they decided to adopt a medium-low downforce rear wing to have higher top speeds both at the end of the straights and in fast corners (conscious of the MCL38’s ability to generate a lot of downforce from the bodywork of the car). This could certainly play a big role both in qualifying and also in the race, as it’ll be easier for Norris and Piastri to attack and defend. 

The rear wing solution adopted by the Woking team is the same one already used in Miami and Saudi. 

Coming on to Red Bull, they adopted a much more loaded rear wing than McLaren, the same spec used last time out in Austria. Conscious of the RB20’s efficiency and excellent performance in the high speed, Red Bull’s engineers decided to adopt a much more loaded rear wing that could give an advantage in the last sector and in the slow speed, as well as in the tyre management.

This wing choice could be a disadvantage in wheel to wheel battles, but the RB20 could be really tough to beat on this layout, as underlined by Piastri today: "I think Red Bull will be strong. They were very quick in the high-speed corners in Barcelona, very quick in the high-speed in Austria. And, I mean, basically this whole track is high-speed corners. So I think they'll be very tough to beat."

Ferrari ready to face a difficult weekend 

Moving to Ferrari and Mercedes, they both adopted a medium downforce rear wing, but for two different reasons: on the one hand, Ferrari is conscious that, due to the upgrades introduced in Barcelona, this track could be a thorn in the side for the SF-24. Due to the recent changes, in fact, bouncing has reappeared, creating a lot of instability and making the car nervous in long and fast corners. The main objective of the package introduced in Barcelona, ​​in fact, was to increase the level of downforce produced by the Venturi channels and the bodywork of the car, while improving the overall efficiency. However, what ended up happening was that the new floor generates so much load that the suspension system (even if set to be very stiff) is unable to keep the aerodynamic platform stable, causing the downforce peaks to generate this annoying bouncing. 

This problem can’t be solved quickly, as it’s very difficult for the engineers to deeply understand the causes behind it and find a good compromise to make the car quick despite this issue.

The easier and quicker way to solve it is just to raise the car, losing tons of downforce and efficiency. This could be the reason why the Maranello team decided to bring a more loaded rear wing this weekend: as they’ll probably be forced to raise the car and lose a bit of performance, they’ll try to recover the lost downforce from the Venturi channels with a higher downforce rear wing than their competitors. 

This choice could be a double-edged sword, as it could add a bit more downforce on the SF-24 but also make it slower on the straights than Red Bull and McLaren. 

Mercedes with upgrades

Last but not least, Mercedes could clearly be a surprise for this weekend: the W15 is well known for enjoying much cooler conditions than the one faced in the last couple of races and also the Silverstone layout should suit the car. Moreover, fresh from the first win of the season and hopeful of the upcoming updates, the team expects to be competitive on home soil. A crucial role will be played by the upcoming updates, which could really get the W15 closer to McLaren and Red Bull; correlation still seems to be a determining factor this season, as often happened that teams were expecting big gains from upgrades that didn’t translate in reality once fit on the car. 

For this reason, only free practices will give us a clearer idea of whether these solutions will work, but until then we can do nothing but hope that another great weekend of racing is about to start.