Ferrari says SF-24 bouncing woes rooted in correlation ‘anomaly’

Ferrari believes it has finally gotten to the bottom of the high-speed bouncing issues that plagued its 2024 car over the summer after identifying a correlation “anomaly” between its wind tunnel and the track.

The Scuderia noted the return of the dreaded porpoising phenomenon last June in Barcelona following the introduction of a new floor design on its SF-24 charger.

However, rather than delivering an expected performance boost, the new floor triggered severe instability in high-speed corners which inevitably undermined the confidence of Ferrari's drivers.

Subsequent revisions to the underbody geometry, and a return to the previous floor specification for Silverstone, helped mitigate the car's issues.

As Ferrari pressed on with its updated design and implemented changes, a more stable car has emerged, with Charles Leclerc claiming pole position in Baku and looking promising again in Singapore until a disastrous Q3 in qualifying derailed the Italian outfit's prospects for race day at Marina Bay .

According to senior performance engineer Jock Clear, Ferrari's investigation into the root cause of its bouncing issues revealed an "anomaly" between the data from its wind tunnel and the performance on track, a problem the British engineer attributes in part to the complexities of F1's current ground-effect regulations.

Read also:

• Leclerc: Ferrari missing 'pure pace' to target F1 Constructors' title

"You're never fully confident - but I think it's a good picture of how the ebb and flow of everybody's development goes," Clear explained, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"But you're probably asking the same questions to [other teams] – 'have you lost your way?' And certainly after Spain, we didn't feel we'd lost our way, but there was some anomaly between what was happening in the tunnel and what we were seeing on track, and we had to get on top of that.

"That's just the process; when you see an anomaly, you have to get on top of it, try and understand it, and then get back on track.

"And I think what you've seen since is that we've understood it, we got back on track, we just have to be eyes wide open for what the next anomaly will be, because there will be another one because that is the process at the moment.

"So it's not that sometimes the development works, sometimes these developments don't work: the development process is exactly that you are testing something new every week.

"We're confident that our process is working, confident that we're on top of everything. We'll just wait for the next banana skin."

One of the main challenges Ferrari faces lies in developing the floor geometry under the current ground-effect regulations. Clear explained that wind tunnels struggle to fully replicate the car's dynamic behavior on the track, particularly when it comes to measuring how the car performs at different heights.

"I think ever since we brought these ground effect cars back, it's presented challenges that have... in simple terms, when the car's a long way from the floor and the floor is not generating huge amounts of downforce based on its proximity to the floor, then the tunnel can be pretty accurate,” Clear explained.

"But as soon as you get into what's happening over a kerb, what's happening when you're bouncing, the tunnel can't do that.”

Clear elaborated on the limitations of wind tunnel data, especially when it comes to simulating real-world conditions.

"We can bounce the car up and down. But of course, the data then looks a mess. But however much the data looks a mess on track, the driver has to drive it,” he added.

"There's a certain level of correlation between the tunnel and the track, that it's difficult that you're ever going to get 100% fidelity.”

The extreme sensitivity of ground-effect cars to changes in ride height only compounds the challenge, according to Clear.

"You're always going to have these anomalies and with the ground effect, the anomalies are bigger because that proximity to the ground becomes all the more powerful as soon as it," he said.

"When it gets to zero, you lose all your downforce, And when it comes back up to five millimeters, you get loads of downforce and you get into this really peaky area on the floor. And everybody's challenged with that all the time."

Despite these inherent challenges, Ferrari is optimistic about its development process and believes it is better equipped to handle future setbacks.

The team is now keeping its focus on continuing to refine its car while remaining vigilant for any new issues that may arise.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter