Ferrari’s 2021 Formula 1 contender, the SF21, features ‘radical change’ to the aerodynamics at the rear of the car according to its technical bosses.
A carry over of cars from last year to this offered teams little in the way of freedoms to revolutionise their designs, with Ferrari opting to focus its energies at the back end of the car.
That focus extends not only to the bodywork, but the revised power unit, the packaging of which has allowed for a more compact overall design.
“This car was born out of last year’s car due to the new regulations,” explained team boss Mattia Binotto.
“So it was partly frozen but we tried to improve it in all of its areas, where it was possible.
“The aerodynamics was revised, and it has a completely new power unit.”
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Under the regulations for the coming year, designers had comparatively little versus the almost complete freedom designers usually have.
“When we tackled the project for the SF21, we had to choose right away which part of the car we’d give our attention to, to make a radical change,” explained chassis director, Enrico Cardile.
“We chose the posterior [and] created a new transmission and new suspension.
“This, along with the work done by our power unit engineers, gave us a much more tapered rear end compared to the SF1000.”
The team also revised the car’s cooling in an effort to create a more swooping tail to the car in an effort to claw back some of the downforce lost by regulation changes to the floor.
While focus was placed on the rear end, work has been undertaken on the leading edges of the car though many of the key components have been carried over from 2020.
“The changes to the front part of the car were less radical due to the regulations,” Cardile explained.
“So we developed a new front wing that works coupled with a newly conceived nose, but the chassis and the suspension are the same as the SF1000.”
Formula 1 pre-season testing gets underway in Bahrain tomorrow (March 12).
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