Ferrari has an indisputable strong point in pit stops: the Prancing Horse team in the first two rounds of the season, very disappointing as a final result, won both in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award (the fastest time was a 2”10 tire change in Jeddah), a sign that the excellent work done during the winter break by Diego Ioverno has paid off, after the repeated problems recorded last year.
Supremacy, at least in one aspect the Scuderia has overtaken Red Bull Racing, is the result of constant training by the two crews who in Maranello are preparing for the delicate moment of tire change, an operation that does not win races, but which conversely, when something doesn’t work right, it can cause them to lose.
The Ferrari mechanics already did the pit stop tests in the Melbourne pit lane on Thursday: nothing extraordinary, except that the Prancing Horse guys attracted attention because in the… push maneuver of the SF-23 they didn’t even grab to the rear wing, as is usually the case.
In fact, Giorgio Piola’s image shows us two mechanics pushing the car on the rear tyres, while the third focused on the rear deformable structure. It was clear that the mechanics did not want to subject the single pylon of the rear wing to a force contrary to that which is normally applied with the aerodynamic load during the direction of travel, but the thing, repeated in the various pit stops, aroused some ‘ of attention and some chat in Melbourne.
It should not be forgotten that the birth of the mono-pylon was rather tribulated: in the pre-season tests of Sakhir, immediately after being assembled, the DRS control had broken on the only example available, so it was not tested.
It went worse in the first free practice session of the Bahrain GP when the failure of the single support had made the lateral movement of the two elements dangerously elastic with completely out of control push-ups which made it advisable to park the solution immediately.
With the design error resolved, both SF-23s raced mono-pylon to Jeddah without experiencing the slightest boredom and in perfect safety. Seeing that in Australia the mechanics have taken all the precautions to avoid touching the rear wing has given rise to many speculations.
One fact is certain: the search for lightness has exasperated the construction of certain details which have now reached their limit (Red Bull “argued” for two years with the DRS command, so let’s not be surprised if the pit stop tests of the Ferraris will also be kept an eye on in the next few days…
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