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Ferrari SF90

Ferrari revealed their highly anticipated 2019 challenger – the SF90 – that they are hoping will take the fight to Mercedes this season. The team has gone through another era of change, with the departure of Maurizio Arrivabene making way for the new Team Principal, Mattia Binotto, formerly Ferrari’s Chief Technical Officer. Add to this, the swapping of seats between the experienced Kimi Raikkonen and F1’s new young gun Charles Leclerc, and it appears that Ferrari are pulling out all the stops to beat Mercedes. But as we’ve seen in the past with the Italian team, change does not always trump consistency.

Ferrari only released high res renderings of the SF90, so although we cannot accurately analyse the details, we can get an understanding of the general design philosophy of the car. 

The front wing features the regulated 5 closed main elements, with all the additional furniture on the outboard portion of the wing removed. The endplates are much more simplified and the rendering suggest that these are also curved. The SF90’s nose is of very similar shape to that of last year, with the tiny inlet at the front. The slot gaps along the side of the nose, highlighted in blue, seem to have remained as well as the turning vanes rearwards of the front wing. It will be interesting to see whether the front wing on the real car will include so many of the same features as last year, considering that the aerodynamic philosophy of the car has had to completely change for 2019. 

The brake ducts have been another area of simplification for 2019, with the complex turning vanes and surrounding shrouding removed. Only one single aperture that is 50mm in circumference is permitted, which can be seen below on the render. However, it is likely that this has been further simplified for the rendering. Development in this area is now a key focus for 2019 as the outwash effect of the brake ducts and wheel rims becomes more important, due to the heavily restricted front wing.

The Ferrari SF90 sidepod concept is again similar to that of last year’s car, although there appears to be only one main inlet. The mirrors that sparked so much controversy last year are now mounted to the main chassis and the elements surrounding the sidepod, rather than from the Halo. The lack of cooling vents rearwards of the sidepods and other details again suggest that the renderings are a much simplified version of what we will see on track. 

Another 2019 rule change is the reduction in bargeboard height from 475mm to 350mm above the reference plane, which can clearly be seen in the blue squares to the right of the image below. Another difference lies in the extended elements that condition the flow into the sidepod inlet. The Ferrari SF90 rendering shows that the bottom section is now significantly shorter than last year and consists of three elements, rather than one (the third is black and difficult to see).

One of the main things that Ferrari have been working on is relocating some of the power unit ancillaries, with the aim of saving space. This has allowed Ferrari to tighten up it’s packaging, resulting in a narrower engine cover for the SF90, cleaning up the airflow before it flows onto the rear wing. 

This narrower packaging can also be seen by the different shape of the engine air intake, which is now much more triangular when compared to last year. Although, Ferrari say that their work on the fluid dynamic side of things has resulted in a cooling package which achieves the same level of efficiency as last year’s car, but now takes up less space on the Ferrari SF90.

Overall, the Ferrari SF90 renderings are more about showing the effect of the 2019 rules, rather than revealing any secrets about it’s design. Only when the car hits the track will we really see what the Italian team have really been up to over the winter. 

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