How Ferrari plans to recover in 2021
from its worst F1 nightmare in 40 years
The reasons behind Ferrari’s plunge down the
Formula 1 pecking order came from two directions. But it could be argued that both had the same source: the team itself. Whatever Ferrari was doing with its previous engine design – the FIA has never stated that it was doing something illegal, but there is strong suspicion regarding its fuel-flow operation in 2019 – it got serious negative attention. The governing body conducted a lengthy investigation, and subsequently issued a string of technical directives aimed at closing ambiguities in the power-unit rules.
These applied to all engine manufacturers, but hit Ferrari hardest. And it did so in two areas, as the aerodynamic developments on 2020’s SF1000, which were aimed at widening the range of tracks where the Italian team was competitive, suddenly lacked the power punch expected to overcome the drag these parts created. This explained its pre-season woes now over a year ago.
While these self-made issues were hurting Ferrari, its main opposition was striking another blow – by improving itself. Mercedes had been so spooked by the string of Ferrari victories in 2019’s summer and early autumn that it essentially vowed to pile even more innovation on its 2020 design. The resulting W11 is surely set to go down as one of the best cars in F1 history, and it pulled Mercedes further away from its plummeting former frontrunning rival. The depth Ferrari eventually reached was sixth in the constructors’ championship – its worst finishing position since placing 10th in 1980. Understanding Ferrari’s 2020 nightmare is vital when considering its dream for 2021. The cost-saving design carryover requirements that stem from the economic squeeze of the COVID-19 pandemic mean that no F1 team can produce an all-new car this year. Indeed, this unique season in modern F1 means the competitors will be entering the upcoming campaign with various elements of their 2020 reality still hanging around. The question therefore facing Ferrari, ahead of next week’s unveiling of its SF21 challenger, is can it recover from its 2020 disaster and rapidly climb back to its ‘Class A’ position alongside Mercedes and Red Bull?
Based on the signs and suggestions coming from the red team, a successful turnaround is possible – but, and the team itself is at pains to point this out, there are limits to how far back up the grid it can climb. Whatever the result is going to be, if Ferrari wants to get back to where it was, its engine simply must produce more power.
“Last year, the main issue was the speed on the straight lines – not only the power, but both power and drag,” says team boss Mattia Binotto. “We’ve worked a lot, both on the power unit and the aerodynamics, to reduce the drag of the car. And based on our simulations today, on what we can see in terms of power output from the dynos and the drag of the car from the windtunnel, I think that we’ve recovered quite a lot of speed on the straight lines. So,
I’m expecting speed not to be such an issue as it was.”
Of course, it’s one thing to state this ahead of the season and another to deliver the sought-after substantial step – possibly as much as 60bhp to draw back level with Mercedes, which made its own engine gain last year. In its efforts on the new engine, Ferrari is understood to have introduced a new cylinder-head design and made its turbine lighter. But there is a sign from elsewhere that should give Ferrari fans comfort regarding its power potential, and it actually concerns its other former main rival: Red Bull.
The news that the teams unanimously agreed to an engine freeze from the start of 2022 was a significant boost to Red Bull, given its recent engine-partner relationship struggles and Honda’s upcoming F1 exit. But it’s worth noting that Ferrari has gone from being firmly against the freeze to voting for it. Speculation is rife here, but it would surely be highly illogical for Ferrari to vote for a rule that would continue its power pain if it didn’t think it had gone some considerable way to solving the problem. Therefore, it will be worth closely checking the speed-trap figures for all the teams running Ferrari power when testing gets under way in just over a week.
But, as well as all this expectation of progress, there is also the knowledge that engine manufacturers only get one chance to upgrade power units in 2021. Any issues or remaining performance gaps can’t be fixed with subsequent design tweaks, and indeed these would be solidified by the freeze (unless a change required under force majeure was allowed by the FIA). Nevertheless, Ferrari’s hope is real. “It looks like quite a good step and I think there’s been a lot of good work,” says Charles Leclerc. “We’ve been since the start of the [year] pushing quite a lot and seeing the improvements of the car. And for now, it looks positive on paper.”
As Binotto states, to correct the second problem that hampered Ferrari’s 2020, the team also needs to sort out its draggy chassis. While this ran alongside the engine deficit in harming Ferrari last year, it’s likely a harder issue to fully solve thanks to the carryover requirements in 2021. Ferrari has opted to spend its
“We’ve been pushing a lot and seeing the improvements. And for now, it looks positive”
two upgrade tokens at the rear of its latest challenger, which is one of the key areas to succeeding this year, as all the teams look to claw back the 10% downforce cut created by the mandated changes to the floors. The nose area remains open for aerodynamic development outside the token restrictions, so Ferrari must use what aero freedom it has to solve the front-end problems its drivers encountered with the SF1000.
“We hope to be competitive, but we will know it only in Bahrain [in testing and then the opening round],” says Binotto. “It’s always relative to what the others are doing, but we think our car is certainly more efficient compared to the one we had last year. When I say efficient, again it’s both from the aero point of view and from the power-unit point of view.”
Binotto and Leclerc are speaking from the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, seated in front of a gigantic screen wall that at various times is filled with the webcam images of watching journalists and
“I’ve been working as I’ve done in the past, to understand what my weaknesses were last year”
fans. Alongside them is, so far, the most visible change from Ferrari’s 2020 nightmare. Carlos Sainz Jr is making his fourth new start in seven seasons as an F1 driver. As he joins Ferrari, he becomes the second former Red Bull junior to pull on the famous red race suit. The driver he replaces is the other. And Sainz’s fortunes this year, particularly compared to Sebastian Vettel’s results in 2020, will be a key part of the recovery Ferrari hopes to achieve. The Spaniard may be shaded on pure pace by Leclerc, but he is a determined character who only seems to be growing in strength.
Looking at Leclerc’s 2020 points haul and comparing that with Vettel’s shows a stark difference: 98 points to 33. Of all the regular points-scoring teams (with Alfa Romeo and Haas excluded from this group alongside Williams due to their small points totals), the points-percentage difference between Leclerc and Vettel was the biggest. All told, Vettel scored just 33.7% of Leclerc’s total (the smallest points-percentage gap between 2020 team-mates was at Mclaren, where Lando Norris scored 92.4% of Sainz’s total).
Crudely put, had Ferrari’s other car been able to bring in the same points total as Leclerc managed, then it would have ended the year on 196 points and clinched fourth place in the constructors’ standings. But that recalculation conveniently ignores what an unusual season it was for Ferrari’s latest leading light.
Leclerc produced some of 2020’s best drives despite Ferrari’s car shortcomings. His one-stop execution in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix was tremendous. So was his qualifying lap for the Sakhir GP that netted him fourth on the grid at a venue that showcased Ferrari’s problems, given he’d have been a deserving winner of the 2019 Bahrain GP, from pole, before his engine-cylinder failure. But, the day after that impressive qualifying display, Leclerc had his third lap-one clash of the season, following the embarrassing shunt that also eliminated Vettel at the start of the Styrian GP and his tap with Lance Stroll that put the Racing Point driver out in Russia. After sending Sergio Perez in the other Racing Point spinning at the start of the second Bahrain race, this time it was Leclerc out on the spot. He later hinted at his first-lap gaffes being the occasional result of his efforts to overcome the SF1000’S problems.
Leclerc’s star has only been on the up in F1, and to be clear his performances across 2020 deservedly elevated his stock further, but Ferrari’s fall down the pecking order presented him with a new problem. In the main, he was an outstanding asset in the team’s
quest to get what it could from a difficult year, taking two podiums on the way. But on the first real stage of its recovery, Ferrari now needs Leclerc to be error-free and just excellent.
“I’ve been working in a similar way as I’ve done in the past, trying to understand what my weaknesses were last year,” he says of his efforts over the winter. “I still believe that tyre management is something I shall push. I improved massively last year, and I hope there will be another step this year. That’s what I’ve done basically – trying to look at past races, trying to understand what we could have done better as a team, as myself in the car, [to] try to improve on that matter especially.”
Both drivers in Ferrari’s new line-up know that their main target is to get the team back to where it should be, which was an overarching message they and Binotto are striving to convey in their launch messages. “The team comes first,” says the boss. “The team matters, and there is not a single individual that counts more than the team itself. It’s something of which we are all aware.”
Aside from the Styrian madness, and some Vettel fury regarding another bold Leclerc passing attempt (successful this time) at the second start of the first Bahrain race, the intra-team tension that had been so prevalent at Ferrari in 2019 was gone. It is, after all, easier for F1 team-mates to co-exist harmoniously when the prizes of wins and titles are beyond their team’s reach. Leclerc even ran a helmet livery to honour the departing Vettel at the season finale, which is not to suggest this touching display was not sincere, but serves as a reminder of how different things were between Ferrari’s drivers a year after their clash in the 2019 Brazilian GP.
“Certainly the team scoring is important – both drivers know it,” adds Binotto. “I’m expecting Carlos to be very fast and competitive this season, as I know that Charles will do [as] he has last year. We certainly need a good car to perform better. But I’m expecting both of them to do well and to have a greater season than last year.”
It’s not just Ferrari’s driver line-up that has been changed ahead of the new campaign. After its previous chassis department leader, Simone Resta, left to join Haas at the end of 2020, the team has reorganised this area. Enrico Cardile now heads the chassis department, which has been split into four separate divisions: vehicle concept, chassis performance engineering, chassis project engineering and vehicle operations. The chassis design division will have an additional role within Ferrari’s trackside engineering work this season, and the team has made alterations to its commercial and marketing set-up too.
Binotto explains that Ferrari felt “there was a necessity of making the structure in the organisation simpler and clearer”, but the
changes also reflect the additional challenges F1 teams face in
2021. As well as adapting to F1’s new cost cap, which Binotto says did not result in Ferrari’s decision to enter the World Endurance Championship from 2023, like all squads it knows it can drastically improve its position in the pecking order if it nails the 2022 rules reset. For this reason, Binotto will again choose to skip races – once the opening part of the season has passed – during the upcoming campaign, staying in Maranello to oversee work on the 2022 designs, much as he did on two occasions last year (he also missed the season finale due to illness).
“Our focus during 2021 will be developing the 2022 car,” Binotto explains. “That will be the main target, so we will not spend much time on the 2021 [car] during the season. There is always a balance, it’s a choice that we need to make at some stage, but the 2022 car is such a big change that there is at least a minimum quantity of exercise and design and projects that need to be developed.
So, most of the effort will be in there.”
Through all the major rules resets F1 has enacted since the turn of the millennium, Ferrari has not been able to emerge as the championship’s dominant squad (of arguably the three most significant regulation overhauls – 2009, 2014 and 2017 – Mercedes, initially as Brawn, has been the only the only team to do so). But there is a slight difference this time around, which was not a consideration 12 months ago, when the teams were preparing for a year spent updating their 2020 cars alongside the switch to the new machines that had been expected for 2021. Now, alongside the cost cap, F1 has a minor form of performance balancing in effect, as the allowances on windtunnel testing and CFD usage are governed on a sliding handicap scale. This means Mercedes will have 90% of what was previously allowed for at least the first six months of
2020 (there is a reset after this point based on the order of the new season), while Williams gets to use up to 112.5% of the time the
“Our focus during 2021 will be developing the 2022 car. That will be the main target”
teams could run these tools in 2020. As a result of its disaster last year, Ferrari has at least sixth months with 102.5% permitted.
The results of the 2022 reset will best define how Ferrari is set up to challenge in F1’s changing realm, as will be the case with its rivals too. But the coming campaign will at least provide some insight into how the team is recovering from its latest setback in trying to win a first F1 title since its 2008 constructors’ crown.
As it was ahead of testing in 2020 – but for very different reasons this time around – the team is striking a calm, pragmatic note. After all, even if the new engine alone reverses the losses its 2020 power unit incurred versus the controversial 2019 design, then that only theoretically brings Ferrari back to where things were two years ago. Mercedes, after dealing with a reliability problem that may well have cost it points had last season started on time, made a power step in response to Ferrari’s 2019 performances. Honda is hoping to provide Red Bull with its best turbo-hybrid engine before formally dropping the keys to its UK F1 engine facility to the other side of Milton Keynes. Ferrari is therefore wise to promise little while trying to deliver more than expected. It’s a mantra that has worked wonderfully for Mercedes during its F1 domination.
“Certainly, last year was a big, big disappointment,” says Binotto. “We know that we cannot repeat such a bad result. We know that we need somehow to do better in 2021. But I think what counts even more is our will to win. I’m not saying that we will win.
I think that we need to be realistic.
“I do believe that our car is better than last year’s. Obviously, you cannot compare them [totally] because there is a change in the aero regulations on the floor and on the back. But the way
I’ve seen the car developing both in the windtunnel and on the dyno, I believe that somehow we made a significant effort. The gap to the best last year was very important and not something that we recover in a single winter.”
For all its efforts to downplay expectations, Ferrari knows it can’t repeat its 2020 nightmare – or endure a worse ordeal in 2021.