Ferrari SF-24 - Q&A with Diego Loverno
The Ferrari SF-24 was launched in front of a small audience of guests today, while the rest of the world watched online. It is the 70th car the company has built to take part in the Formula 1 World Championship. Attending the presentation at the Fiorano track were President John Elkann, CEO Benedetto Vigna and Vice-President Piero Ferrari, along with representatives of the partners, as well as team members, starting with Team Principal Fred Vasseur and the drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. The busiest season ever, with no fewer than 24 races, gets underway next week in Bahrain with the only pre-season three-day test session, followed by the first grand prix at the same venue, on Saturday 2 March.
The SF-24 is the third car of the new Formula 1 ground effect generation, but it breaks with the tradition of the past two years, starting with the look of it. The design group, led by Enrico Cardile, aimed to give Charles and Carlos a car that is easy to drive and that reacts predictably, with as a starting point, the positive feeling the drivers had in the cockpit over the final few races of last season. The goal is to allow them to make the most of the power unit’s potential, combined with their undoubted skill behind the wheel.
The SF-24 is the third car of the new Formula 1 ground effect generation, but it breaks with the tradition of the past two years, starting with the look of it. The design group, led by Enrico Cardile, aimed to give Charles and Carlos a car that is easy to drive and that reacts predictably, with as a starting point, the positive feeling the drivers had in the cockpit over the final few races of last season. The goal is to allow them to make the most of the power unit’s potential, combined with their undoubted skill behind the wheel.
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MotorTranscript
00:00 There will be many changes in 2024 sporting regulations, but probably the most interesting
00:22 or the one with the biggest impact is the one related to the different format that we
00:27 will face in the six sprint weekends that are scheduled for 2024.
00:33 Since a while among teams with F1, with FIA, we have been discussing possible modifications
00:40 to these weekends in order to make them as attractive as possible for fans that were
00:46 already enjoying, but there is always room to improve and also to make them more challenging
00:51 for teams.
00:53 We thought that a possible modification could have been to make the weekend a bit more linear,
00:59 so what we will see in 2024 is a weekend starting again with a free practice session as in 2023,
01:07 but immediately after we will have the sprint qualifying.
01:10 We will not have any longer the qualify for Sunday, but we will enter already in Friday
01:15 afternoon in the sprint part of the weekend with the sprint race in the morning of Saturday.
01:22 Sprint quali and sprint race will be kept by a Parfume phase one.
01:28 This Parfume will end after the sprint race, allowing teams and drivers to work eventually
01:35 on the cars to be prepared for the quali that will be on the afternoon or the second day
01:41 of running, where another Parfume period will start, ending with the race on Sunday.
01:49 Another modification that will be for sure interesting for the fans and a slightly different
01:55 approach required for the teams is about Sunday, where the grid will open 40 minutes before
02:01 the scheduled time of formation lap.
02:05 We were used to 50 minutes.
02:07 And also the usage of DRS.
02:08 DRS will be enabled one lap after the race start or one lap after the restart of the
02:15 race.
02:16 Last year was two laps in the normal weekends.
02:19 Also we have reviewed the allocation of wet tyres.
02:23 We will move from four sets of intermediates and three sets of extreme tyres to five and
02:29 two.
02:31 And there are also points that are still under discussion that most likely will not be included
02:37 in the sport regulation, but will be addressed with directive for the stewards and the director
02:43 notes event by event.
02:45 I'm referring to traffic management during qualifying or track limits infringement and
02:53 possible action to mitigate the downside of these happenings.
03:04 Second part of 2023 season has shown in our opinion a positive path.
03:10 The trend was of improvement.
03:13 Nevertheless, analysing our races and our season, we realised that there were some things
03:20 missing.
03:22 For sure we have not been opportunistic enough.
03:25 We left behind too many points.
03:28 Main target of the whole team is obviously to score as many points as possible.
03:34 And this happens only if you have a fast car.
03:37 Now whatever car you have, execution comes to play and you have to execute properly.
03:43 We had many reliability issues, some mistakes, problem of communication and these are operation
03:51 side the topics that we are trying to take over winter with preparation, with revised
03:57 procedures, with different method of preparing the weekend and the execution of the sessions.
04:05 2024 is going to be the longest F1 season ever.
04:25 We will have 24 races and the last will be the 8th of December.
04:30 So it will be very challenging and stressful for our people.
04:36 Already since some years we have been trying to rotate the track personnel and this has
04:43 already paid off.
04:45 We are going to do the same even more in the coming season, trying to maximise the performance
04:53 throughout all the year of our people but also trying to make it more sustainable for
04:58 them, allowing some time to rest.
05:01 This is not coming for free.
05:04 You need to be organised, you need to be prepared, you need to accept that this rotation is also
05:11 including a different level of preparation and a different level of information exchange
05:20 among all the team.
05:23 But this we think is the way to go also for the future.
05:26 Thank you.
05:26 [END]