Revealed: Ferrari’s area of focus for Lewis Hamilton's SF-25 at Bahrain testing

Lewis🐼 Hamilton got to work with Ferrari on Day 1 of F1 pre-seas🐲on testing in Bahrain

Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton

168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari was one of the first cars out on track as F1 pre-season testing kicked off in Bahrain.

As part of Ferrari’s early testing🌳 programme, Hamilton’s Ferrari was fitted with a huge aero rake.

The interesting reason soon 🔯became clear, before Hamilton 🐈finished 13th on the timesheet.

Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz explained: "The aero rake was positioned downstream o🅘n the front wing. That’s because they needed to get a read on what the front wing was doing.

"This area of fr🌞ont wing, and particularly front wing flexibility, is perhaps the key to this season’💯s championship.

"Something changed over the winte꧃r. At the end of last year the FIA were happy with the flexibility on the wings, even though they asked McLaren൲ to tidy up their mini-DRS.

"But something changed, the FIA said ‘a🐟ctually we are not happy!’ They asked the teams to firm up their front wings by a few millimetres.

"Much of the performance that McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes found was due to aero elasticity on the front wings, g𓄧iving drivers the downforce they needed.

"Something💦 has changed and that’s what F🀅errari were sorting out on their first run with Hamilton."

Kravitz added: "I was interested to see that aero rake on Hamilton’s car on his first run, mಞeasuring what’s going on with the front wing.

"It’s ﷺone of the technical talking points of the early part of the🅘 year."

What is an F1 aero rake?

Tea🔴💮ms use aero rakes to understand the airflow around their car.

This is important 🥂at this stag♓e of the year because all 10 teams are running new cars with new aero packages.

These rakes will allow Ferrari to determine whether the airflow is as expected from th🅠e wind tunnel, playing an important role൲ in terms of correlation.

Teams will abandon running these rakes wh🌳en they up the pace and focus more on performance.

Rear wing analysis for Ferrari in F1 testing

"Look✃ at the dished central rear wing of Hamilton's, it's new for this year," Alex Brundle said.

"That's Ferrari learning more about the air flow over the rear wing. What they have learned is that the central part𝐆 of the main plane is more efficient than the exterior.

ಌ"You get more downforce versus the drag, in the central part, rather than the outside where the vortices sucks the car backwar🥀ds."

Lewis Hamilton can get “proper feel” of Ferrari

Day one of testing in Bahrain was♔ Hamilton’s first chance to get a true feel of the SF-25.

Hamilton and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc conducted a shakedown last week at Ferrari’s home tra꧒ck at Fioraꩲno.

However, given the short♏ and tight nature of the Italian circui♊t, it would have been difficult for either driver to get up to speed.

Hamilton had 12🌳 hours of running available to him ahead of the first race in Melbourne on March 16.

F1 TV pundit Lawrence Barretto says the♓ test will allow Hamilton to finally “stretch his legs” in♛ Ferrari machinery.

“This is the day that Lewis would have waited for since🍎 he wa✨lked into Maranello,” Barretto said.

“He tested the 2023 car, the 2024 car and has done a couple of demo laps in the 2025 car. But this is where he wi🌞ll get a proper feel for the car, stretch his legs, and feel whether he can get the most out of this car.”

With Hamilton making the switch from Mercedes, adapting to the Ferrari powe♚r unit will be another important part of the adaptation process.

Hamilton has only driven with Mercedes power t꧙hroughout his career, stretch🌟ing back to his days at McLaren.

F1 commentator David Croft added: “There will be huge attention on Lewis, as there always is. Particularly as he makes his first few lap🅰s on Ferrari power. His entire career so far has been powered by Mercedes engines.”

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