Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has said he is confident that the Scuderia has made significant progress in addressing the weaknesses of its 2020 challenger, which was one of the slowest cars in a straight line at many of the circuits raced at last season.
Speaking during a Ferrari launch event on Friday, Binotto stressed that reducing the chassis’ drag levels and improving the performance of their power unit are both important to tackling the weaknesses of the SF1000.
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“I think that last year the main issue was the speed on the straight lines. Not only the power but both power and drag,” Binotto said during today’s launch event which featured the Scuderia’s new driver line-up.
Continuing, Binotto said that simulations indicate that they have made progress in reducing the car’s drag and increasing engine performance.
“We’ve worked a lot both on the power unit and the car aerodynamics to reduce the drag of the car,” he said.
“And based on our simulations today, based on what we can see in terms of power output from the dynos and the drag of the car from the wind tunnel, I think that we’ve recovered quite a lot of speed on the straight lines.
“So I’m expecting the speed not to be such an issue as it was.”
Commenting on the upcoming season – which comes off the back of Ferrari having their worst campaign in four decades – Binotto said they are hoping to be competitive but they won’t have an idea of the pecking order until the season gets underway in Bahrain.
“I think it’s always relative to what the others are doing,” he stressed, adding that: “But we believe our car is certainly more efficient compared to the one we had last year, and when I am saying efficient it is again from the aero point of view and the power unit point of view.”
Ferrari will launch their 2021 car on March 10, just a couple of days prior to pre-season testing getting underway in Bahrain.
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