Ferrari has become the first team to officially announce their launch date for the 2017 car, confirming the date at a Christmas media event on Monday. Ferrari President, Sergio Marchionne, confirmed that “The team is giving its all” and that the team will be working hard during the off-season.
After losing out to Red Bull in 2016, the Italian based team will be looking to produce a car that will be capable of winning. The 2017 car will take to the track on February 24, just three days before the start of winter testing in Barcelona. The car will first appear on the Fiorano Circuit, a private development and testing racetrack owned by Ferrari, at which the team plans to spend their two allotted filming days. The car will then be shipped to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the first pre-season test.
“The team is giving its all and has a great will to win. We have restructured and I prefer to look to the future in a different way. I don’t regret the choices made, they were well thought out, so there’s no need to change ideas,” explained Sergio Marchionne, the President of Ferrari. “There are still many things missing, but the team is the team and it was put in place over a period of years and we’re not about to change it now. Our working practice is already different to what it was back in August, which is when Mattia Binotto took over the reins. The organizational change was also partly made to bring some calm. Put in the work and the results will come.”
The 2017 regulation changes have many people wondering which team will have the competitive edge at the end of the winter break. The 2017 season cars are predicted to have a greater demand for aerodynamics, a concept which Enzo Ferrari dismissed many years ago, saying, “aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.” However, many are optimistic that the Italian outfit can produce a strong car capable of throwing Mercedes off of the top.
“There are so many changes to the rules relating to aerodynamics. We will see cars that are much quicker through the corners, under acceleration and in braking,” said Mattia Binotto, the Chief Technical Officer at the Ferrari F1 Team. “There is nothing to say that we here in Maranello cannot build such a car…It’s just a matter of time. What we lacked on occasions this year was the ability to react quickly. We must be able to introduce new solutions before the others do.”
