"If you can't beat them, join them" goes the old saying. But Ferrari denies that it has merely copied the successful aero concept of Red Bull's dominant RB19 and it made it its own.
Formula 1 teams have a long history of borrowing successful design elements or technical concepts from their rivals.
This approach allows teams to learn from one another and adapt to new technologies and strategies.
It's not necessarily a case of "if you can't beat them, join them," but rather a recognition that successful ideas should be incorporated into their own designs to achieve better performance.
Red Bull's downwash sidepod design paired with the RB19's complex floor element is now the benchmark concept that its rivals are aiming to replicate.
Senior Ferrari engineer Jock Clear has no problem admitting that the latest update package implemented on the Scuderia's SF-23 in Barcelona was inspired by Red Bull's concept.
But suggesting that the Italian outfit merely copied the bull's ideas is an interpretation of its approach that is as simplistic as it is incomplete.
"We all have to learn from what other people are doing, but we also have to learn from what we’re doing," Clear explained in Barcelona, quoted by RaceFans.net.
"We’re not copying anyone, per se. We’re looking at what they did, we’re going back to our tunnel and trying to find out if that works. Now, it’s appeared on the car now because it works.
"As soon as you see what someone else is doing well and you get that in your tunnel, you’re disciplined enough not to have a ‘knee jerk’ and just chuck it on your car, because it won’t work.
"But you have to give yourself a couple of months to get it sorted, to get it to work with your car, and then you say ‘yeah, actually I can see where they’re coming from there’.
"What you see is the result of that. It’s going to lead to a further development down that avenue. We’ve started to investigate a new avenue to go down and this is the result of that."
While Ferrari moved close to Red Bull in terms of its design concept, the Scuderia was still well adrift from the bull's RB19 out on the track on race day.
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Again, Clear offered context to the relative performance of Ferrari's car in Spain which, on paper, appeared as disappointing to the tifosi.
"This has not made half a second or seven tenths of a second difference," said Clear, referring to the SF-23's new aero package. "This is two, three tenths at best.
"But the positive thing is it’s two tenths in Barcelona, and Barcelona is a circuit which really exposes a car’s weaknesses. You can’t come to Barcelona and hide.
"So that’s the real positive. We’ve come here and we’ve made that upgrade work at probably one of the most exposing circuits."
Senior Ferrari engineer Jock Clear.
Clear points to Carlos Sainz's front-row start in Barcelona – the Spaniard's best result in qualifying this season – as a validation of Ferrari's step forward.
"I think you’ve got to avoid that knee-jerk where somebody says ‘I don’t give a damn, just get it on the car’," he explained. "Because that never works.
"Your head of aerodynamics and your technical people have to say ‘until this works on our car, we’re just going to be spending money for no sake here, unless we get it to work’.
"That’s the frustration of it taking until race seven to get it there. But that’s the discipline of doing it properly. And I think you saw the results of that [in qualifying]."
©Ferrari
Nevertheless, and despite Ferrari's confidence that it is following the right development track once again, the proof will be in the pudding moving forward.
Clear says the Italian outfit is committed to its "fundamental" process, but the British engineer steered clear of predicting how far this will take it.
"With the budget cap being what it is, you can’t just afford to do one-offs that you think ‘well, let’s try this, we don’t understand why’" he said.
"We understand why this package that we’ve got here works, and we think that has opened up a new avenue for us that we’re now going to exploit.
"Where that goes into the woods? We don’t know. We can see the next couple of corners, but we can’t see much further down the road.
"But certainly we’re relying on that sort of fundamental process of your aerodynamic development has to be coherent.
"So the fact that we’ve brought this suggests to all of us in the team ‘okay, the aero guys are happy with this being a coherent way to go, and that it will lead somewhere, and we will have to explore that further’. And you’ll see that further on in the year."
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