Ferrari has brought a series of minor improvements to 2019 French GP which will determine the development path for next improvement in Austria, England and Germany to try to reach the unbeatable Mercedes.
“In France, we will have several smaller evolutions, elements that are a useful step in defining the direction we will embark on on the development of the car,” said Technical Director and Team Principal Mattia Binotto.
“What we will bring will not be a solution to our problems, but feedback and technical information from these evolutions will be important for the next steps.”
“Paul Ricard last year was a tough track for us, and we know that this kind of track is not overly suited to our package, but nothing is impossible and we will be prepared to do our best.”
Front wing evolution
According to the expectations, Ferrari has brought the evolution of their front wing which is based on the same outwash concept with low angle of attack of the upper flaps to send more airflow to the outside of the front wheels.
The novelty is that the top element, which on the old version of the wing was nearly horizontal, now has a slightly more angle to increase the downforce while the rear vertical edge of the front wing endplate is now stepped, with a cutout in its upper part (yellow).
Another new item is small horizontal fin (magenta) on the outside bottom part of the endplate that pushes the airflow agressively around the front tyre.
Area around front brakes
The FIA has reduced the volume around the front brakes for this season in which teams can put different fins whose function often has nothing to do with brake cooling, but has a role in the aerodynamic package.
For France, Ferrari has introduced new fins that are verticaly stacked in three groups and the air is driven down at a very aggressive angle, helping to prepare and direct the airflow into key areas on the floor around the sidepod front edge.
The first two groups of these fins consist of three small finsto avoid separation at such large angles of attack while the last group consists of two fins due to less angle of attack.
So far, Ferrari has used five fins at similar angle, but they were made from one part.
Floor
Ferrari added two groups of small horizontal curved fins (blue) located on longitudinal slots on the floor which act as vortex generators, helping sealing the floor to protect it from external turbulence.
Until France, Ferrari used such horizontal fins in front of the rear wheels and now they have added two groups of two fins that stretch to the middle of the front longitudinal slots group.
Last year Ferrari experimented with similar vortex generators in this area and the idea was quickly copied by Red Bull (and later on by many other teams).
Diffuser
New for Paul Ricard are the new winglets on the top of the diffuser which now follow diffuser’s contoures on the top and on the sides.
The previous version had the upper profiles that followed the upper part of the diffuser and the lateral profiles were not connected to the upper ones.
