Formula 1 comes out of hibernation and the awakening is near. Scuderia Ferrari reopens the Racing Department from Thursday 21 May, following the lockdown imposed on all teams by the FIA. After the engine operators (partially) resumed activity last week, it is now time for the Ferrari technicians to also deal with the SF1000.
The Racing Department, however, has a gradual start because many technical and administrative staff members remain at home: from doing nothing they will switch to smart working, being able to open their company computer to resume work. Indeed it is perhaps better to say, start the development work of the SF1000.
We are talking about a car that has never raced but is already old. As we have explained in recent days in Maranello, a real race against time begins to try to understand and improve the car before the Austrian GP scheduled from 3 to 5 July.
The appointment at the Red Bull Ring as well as marking the opening of the 2020 season (the cancellation of the Australian GP in Melbourne looks like another geological era …) will determine the approval of F1 regarding some vital parts of the car as a chassis, transmission and suspension.
And if it is true that the SF1000 was not born immune to problems (it seems that the gearbox has, albeit minimal, twists such as to make behavior difficult especially in fast corners) there is the real hope of making a qualitative leap introducing many parts planned for development in these months, so even the power unit will not be the 065/1 one expected at the beginning of the season, but the evolution capable of about fifteen more horsepowser.
Ferrari has put in place a rigorous health safety plan and the implementation of these procedures could slow down the operational efficiency by a good 15%, but it is equally true that the staff who stay at home can focus on the design so it cannot be excluded that the staff of Simone Resta, who had been entrusted with the relaunch of the SF1000 after the disappointing tests in Barcelona, may extract more from the red car than they thought at the start of the lockdown.
It’s a race against time, as long as F1 manages to really start again. In Melbourne, Ferrari was considered the third force on the field: will anything change in these weeks of work in the factory, but not only?
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