The Maranello-based team has confirmed not one, but two launch dates for the 2021 season. On the 26th of February, they will be officially unveiling their new team, including the first look at their new driver line-up of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr., and on the 10th March, they will reveal the SF21 itself.
Written By Ian Bruce, Edited By Umut Yelbaşı
The announcement was made by Mattia Binotto following the first fire-up of the new SF21 on Friday morning. This makes Ferrari the 6th team to confirm their launch dates, along with Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Williams, McLaren and AlphaTauri. We are yet to receive confirmations from Red Bull, Alpine, Aston Martin and Haas.
Binotto addressed the entire Ferrari team, with most of the members of it joining via video calls. He stated “Our 2021 season starts here. We can expect plenty of challenges along the way and we are determined to do better”. He went on to say that “the car has been improved in all areas, where developments are permitted”.
Obviously, Ferrari will hope to improve upon a wholly dire 2020 season, where they finished 6th in the Constructors Championship behind McLaren, Racing Point and Renault, the worst finish for them in 40 years. A new engine was top priority, as the 2020 spec unit was very down on power, a fate that was shared with both Alfa Romeo and Haas. It was also evident that the car itself had issues, as results in testing proved. Both drivers struggled to get any results with the SF1000, with only 3 podiums between them and Vettel failing to get into Q3 most weeks. Leclerc dragged out many decent results, but he too spent too much time in the mid-field.
For the most successful and longest serving team in F1, 2020 was a disaster. The Scuderia do hope that 2021 can be better, but no one in the management team believes that they will get back to winning ways until 2022. We won’t know until pre-season testing in Bahrain if they have made any improvements at all. The fury of the Tifosi awaits them, if they haven’t.
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