Ferrari has had notoriously poor in-season development form in recent years but the Scuderia has come out the blocks charging in 2017 and is already piling the pressure on title rival Mercedes.
For Bahrain an updated cooling package was introduced to cope with the extreme desert heat, including a series of notched louvres venting air by the cockpit side, while at the rear a twin Monkey Seat winglet arrangement above the exhaust shows more signs that the team have a new lease of creativity in their car design.
Images of the power unit finally emerged too and although there is nothing drastically new to report as yet, the overall design appears to be cleaner and more refined than last year.
The biggest changes to the SF70H were made to the front-wing, which appears to be a proper evolution of the previous design rather than the implementation of add-on components to optimise its performance.
Each of the wing’s six elements arch to meet the footplate and the tunnel this creates is more prominent on the updated wing – this is particularly noticeable along the final three elements [see circle 1].
The leading edge of the footplate is also wider [see circle 2] which means the air sent through the tunnel and out around the front-tyre must arc more aggressively. Turning the air in this way could risk detachment but one of the outboard slots has been extended across the entire wing to aid this process.
The longer slot in conjunction with the re-profiled upper flaps will have also altered the Y250 vortex characteristics in both its strength and stability as it travels backwards.
