While waiting for the official name of the Ferrari 2024 challenger, Frederic Vasseur, Enrico Cardile, and Enrico Gualtieri are working closely together to start the season on the right foot.
The French Team Principal has partially kept his Christmas promise, and Charles Leclerc’s contract was announced before the start of the season – even if everything had already been agreed for a while.
On the other side of the garage, there is still no news on decisive progress to adapt that of Carlos Sainz, although talks are ongoing. Certainly, the alternative would be surprising.
In February, there will be an important meeting to verify the status of operations.
In the meantime, the production and preparation work on the 676 is proceeding at full speed. The initial configuration of the single-seaters these days is widely defined and will be valid for (at least) the first 3 Grands Prix after the tests.
Something that naturally does not only apply to Ferrari. Starting this season, the Suzuka track will be event number four after the initial triptych of Bahrain, Jeddah and Melbourne. It will be the first important reference point for evaluating the qualities of the cars. Suzuka’s characteristics are severe, as are her judgments.
It is no coincidence that Pierre Gasly released an interesting photo while he saw him working on the Enstone simulator on the Rising Sun circuit. Only a few months ago, Verstappen inflicted severe punishment on those who believed they could worry him after the debacle in Singapore, which coincided with the introduction of the TD018.
The truth is that Red Bull made more mistakes than in the whole year, offering a unique opportunity to the competition, exploited perfectly by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari to break the Red Bull streak. ‘Just’ six months later, the opponents will know where they are.
The technical offices are working to introduce the first aerodynamic development cycle, and if all goes well, Ferrari – as well as other teams – will bring the first technical innovations towards Suzuka.
Engineers normally establish the upgrade schedule well in advance. After the production of the moulds at a maximum scale of 60%, tunnel runs are carried out to decide on the actual production of the model, which takes many weeks, as long as no corrections have to be made.
Last year, changing the look of the SF-23 took several months, and the team had to wait until Barcelona to start a new technical journey.
The 2024 chassis is brand new, but it will be valid for two years
The teams are forced to optimize resources in view of the new 2026 cars. In this sense, Ferrari already has everything ready to work on the 677 model; at the same time, it is perfecting the geometries of the parts that we will see in the first phase of the season.
Why? As is known, the next technical regulation will come into force in 2026. However, no one can get involved since the final document will not be known for several weeks.
Furthermore, the F1 Commission decided to wait until January 2025 to begin work. A limited time frame will allow no distractions and is said to absorb as much as 80% of the budget dedicated to improving performance, hence the need for teams to use the current long-term model to run two years of development.
The structure that manages to accelerate its idea-design-production chain without making major errors of evaluation will obtain a great advantage in 2025.
What happened to Ferrari and Mercedes last year, rather than to Aston Martin seen from post-Canada, would be lethal.
A season that some technicians believe could be a great opportunity for those teams that are not of the highest level or for those who are in a good position, like McLaren and want to partially sacrifice 2026 to fish for wildcards in this two-year period.
Author: Giuliano Duchessa
Translation: Jaden Diaz-Ndisang
