Why Ferrari could challenge Red Bull pace in HIGH SPEED Silverstone race

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur pitwall — Photo: © LAT Images

F1 Technical Analysis

Why Ferrari could challenge Red Bull pace in HIGH SPEED Silverstone race

Former Red Bull aero expert Shubham Sangodkar runs the rule over Ferrari's new upgrade

Shubham Sangodkar

Sunday 9 July 2023 11:57 Updated: 12:06

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As the development war for the second best car in Formula 1 continues, Ferrari have brought a Red Bull-inspired beam wing concept to Silverstone which made their top speed as competitive as Red Bull themselves.

Their FP2 long runs and short runs looked competitive, and they clearly emerged as the second best team from Friday ahead of Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren. In fact, it looks like they might have closed the gap to Red Bull more than anyone expected. Don’t take my word for it though, let's look at some data.

FP2 Data: Race Trim

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The long runs help to gauge the actual performance of the car, as these runs are normally done with DRS off. As such, they also provide a clean baseline as to what the real drag of the car is.

There are two main straights at Silverstone. The first one is the Wellington straight, which depends on your exit from the twisty section in Sector 1, and the second is the Hanger straight after the high-speed chicane Becketts. We will focus on the Hanger straight, as it gives a better idea about the top speed since it's less exit-dependent.

Comparing the Red Bull and Ferrari data, we can clearly see the supremacy of the the championship leaders around the high-speed sections of Copse, Maggots and Becketts – they're just in another league through this section with the fuel in the car.

However, looking at the top speed data for the Hanger straight, we see that both Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen clocked 301 km/h at the end of the straight, indicating a fundamental drag improvement of the car with DRS off.

FP2 Data: Quali Trim

The short runs are done with DRS on in qualifying trim to gauge the balance of the car at low fuel and to optimise the battery deployment over the entire lap.

If we look at the telemetry plots of Sainz and Verstappen, again we see that both of them have a similar top speed of 325 km/h as compared to the rest of the field, who were around 320-322 km/h. Clearly Ferrari have made a big step here as well.

Top Speed Comparison

From this plot, we can clearly see that Red Bull and Ferrari are in a league of their own when it comes to top speed. They are ~5 km/h faster than the rest of their main competitors, which is a clear indication that the beam wing update is working.

Shubham Sangodkar is a former F1 Aerodynamicist with a Master's in Racing Car Design specialising in F1 Aerodynamics and F1 Data Analysis. He also posts aerodynamics content on his YouTube channel, which can be found here.