- 26 Μάιος 2025, 18:55
#891053
Ferrari SF25 Deep Dive Floor Analysis
Thanks to Hamilton, we got a chance to see the latest floor geometry of Ferrari. They've been doing their own thing with the floor since 2022 and while most of the teams copied Red Bull since (including McLaren) Ferrari kept their concept and evolved it.
The concept core is bringing the tunnel roof as low as possible to generate raw downforce in ground effect. In 2022 this resulted in noticeable bouncing on early F1-75 - but the car was often so high and so soft it barely made any issue to the drivers.
With updates in suspension and floor design, Ferrari got rid of bouncing completely during 2023 and it only became a problem with notorious Barcelona 2024 floor spec. There, Ferrari wanted to add raw floor downforce with additional vertical kicks on rear boat section and their suspension at the time just couldn't cope with that properly. They raised the car and later in Hungary replaced the rear vertical kick with lateral kick that we can see on photo in the quoted post.
They later made a step forward with Monza 2024 package when they got rid of both boat section and diffuser keel vertical kicks - the concept which live on SF25. This mechanism deprives them of raw downforce at low ride heights, but they make it up with raw tunnel downforce instead.
In my view, Ferrari are letting the flow go sideways out the floor more and more as speed goes up and ride height goes down to prevent raw bouncing through aero design. This is probably a common mechanism on all cars, aided significantly by floor edge wings. The difference with Ferrari is their low throat which will also generate a lot of suction at low ride heights, and this can cause bouncing more easily if the floor edge is not designed properly.
Another key difference with Ferrari is their high diffuser kick, much higher than McLaren and Red Bull. This makes that area less sensitive to bouncing at high speed, while also giving good overall downforce at the front part of the floor. Thus, Ferrari can probably exploit softer rear end for improved low-speed traction performance.
There are some more aero mechanisms in the rear corner, shown on first image. The particular way the floor edge vortices are formed on Ferrari's edge wing is slightly different compared to rest of Top 4, since Ferrari has introduced another rear corner chamber with their Vegas 2024 "experimental" floor. This update of rear corner provided them with better performance in high-speed sections and Leclerc felt it was a particularly good solution in high-speed corners in Qatar.
The problem with SF25 at the moment is clear on these photos too - the rear end is somewhat too soft due to internal suspension mechanics not being able to provide adequate load support and ride-height control, while also providing spring and damping rates to keep the tyres in the right operating window. Ferrari is working on rear-end mechanic update and aim to introduce it in the next few races. If completely successful, it could allow them to set the car low again and unlock 2-3 tenths of extra pace from the car that we've seen in Australia Friday and China Sprint, which Ferrari needs in Qualyfying the most.
https://x.com/AeroTechVH/status/1926986041421902232
