F1 LAUNCH SPECIAL
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his year’s Ferrari has been designed to perform better at high-speed circuits as the team aims to take the fight to Mercedes more consistently this season.
Ferrari’s new SF71H has been built on the foundations of last year’s car, but has many noticeable differences aimed at making the chassis more versatile.
The wheelbase has been lengthened, although Ferrari neglects to say by how much exactly, and the sidepods have been dramatically redesigned. With many other teams adopting the high radiator inlets used by Ferrari last season, the Italian squad has gone a step further by splitting the ducts into two, with one now being located on the top of the sidepods’ leading edge. The remaining area on the outside has been used to duct air around the new sidepods.
The bodywork has been slimmed heavily, with the Ferrari adopting a narrower stance than its predecessor.
“The new car represents an evolution of last year’s car,” said Ferrari technical head Mattia Binotto. “We try to retain the strengths and aggression we had from our concepts at some tracks last year, while finding a step forward from some others.
“The car was performing strongly on some tracks, mostly the lowerspeed ones, so we’ve worked hard on aero development to be strong and perform on high-speed circuits too.
“The main differences for this year are that the wheelbase is longer and the sidepods and radiator ducts are more impressive and more aggressive than last year. Everybody seems to be copying our concept there from last year, but this year we’ve made another step forward from that. The packaging of the car is also very tight now and the body is very narrow, and that’s been a big challenge.
“Integrating the halo has been tricky as it is a big weight in the middle of the car and changes a lot the centre of gravity so we had to do a lot of data for the design of that to make sure everything is working as it should.
“With the power unit we worked on reliability and overall power and the packaging of it. We also worked on the rear suspension to better accommodate the new tyres for this year.”
Sebastian Vettel added: “We started this project very early last season, and the attention to detail on this car is amazing, the work has been put in in so many areas that I asked to improve. The real magic happens underneath this car. Every little part can make a difference and this is definitely a step up in every area of last year’s car.
“We always have positive expectation with a new car, and so much work has gone into this one. In terms of expectation it’s always difficult and the next few weeks will be critical for us to evaluate and understand if all the things we thought about are making sense. I’m sure we’ve worked in the right way.”
Team head Maurizio Arrivabene said: “There are no challenges plural this season, there is just the one challenge –the final challenge to be world champion. The work to achieve that goes in race by race, not just over the first few. Everybody has worked very hard on the details of this car.”