The new sidepods tested on Carlos Sainz's Ferrari in pictures

La Team Ferrari promised changes in Barcelona, ​​and it did not disappoint. The Italian team even created a sensation in the pit lane this Friday afternoon.

Now obliged to present one of their cars before the race weekend, the Maranello team played the game and even attracted a large part of the paddock around its garage. 

Around 12 p.m., she actually took out the car de Charles Leclerc, the one used since the start of the season, with the pontoons dug into the shape of a bathtub.

And then, a few minutes later, she put the No. 16 back in the garage, and brought the car from Carlos Sainz, on which we could discern a major change in the pontoons. 

On the left, the start of season specification. On the right, the Barcelona 2023 specification. © J.Satis/AUTOhebdo

Goodbye to the very rounded shape, make way for a more rectangular and geometric shape, with a more natural and controlled path for the air flow.

According to our indiscretions collected in the paddock, the Scuderia plans to make a comparison during free practice 1, contested this Friday at 13:30 p.m. Carlos Sainz will drive the car with the evolution, while Charles Leclerc will keep the old specification.

An update should be made after the session to know with what specification the Scuderia will continue its weekend.

The Italian team explains this change of pontoons by a need to revisit “the conditioning of the air flow towards the rear wing and the rear part of the car, combined with a different management of the cooling flow, in order to improve the overall efficiency of the car.”  

In addition to this modification to the bodywork, Ferrari is also sporting "circuit specific" modifications to its rear wing in a quest for efficiency here on the Barcelona track. Also, the Scuderia has revisited its floor, mainly to try to eradicate the always untimely rebounds. “This is part of the pontoon update. Changes were needed on the main floor as well as on the edges of the boardr, these new geometries optimize the characteristics of the local flow to increase support.”

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