Ferrari explains Red Bull-inspired choice: 'Higher top speed'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Charles Leclerc used a new rear wing in Canada with less downforce than that of teammate Carlos Sainz. This was partly to give the Monegasque an advantage when overtaking from the back row of the grid, but according to Formula1.com the team plans to use the part as standard in an attempt to match Red Bull Racing's high top speeds.
Firstly, it is Ferrari's intention to use the new rear wing as a standard part. The wing that Leclerc drove with is a stark contrast to the extreme low-downforce wing used in Baku, and is in fact a low-downforce version of Ferrari's standard wing.
Ferrari on new wing Leclerc
In Montreal the team had only one example of the new wing at its disposal, but if it had had more Sainz might have driven it too. The new wing is set to gain in top speed, an area in which the team has so far lost out to Red Bull Racing. To achieve that, some downforce has to be sacrificed, but Ferrari expects to gain more lap time from the reduction in drag than it loses from the reduced downforce.
Ferrari engineer Claudio Albertini explains that the design was inspired by the aerodynamic efficiency seen in the RB18. "It’s true that sometimes you realise when you see a rival where you can improve and you can see that [with] top speed, there was room to improve," he noted.
According to Albertini, the new wing provides F1-75 with an average level of downforce, similar to the set-up in Australia and Miami. At the same time, the part should be more aerodynamically efficient, in order to have lower drag and achieve a higher top speed.