Ferrari has become the first team to confirm the launch date of its 2024 Formula 1 contender.
The Scuderia will peel back the covers on what is poised to be an almost entirely new car on February 13.
Ferrari finished third in the 2023 constructors’ championship, losing out in a duel with Mercedes for the runner’s up spot that lasted until the final race.
Carlos Sainz delivered the only non-Red Bull win of the season with a canny performance in Singapore.
The Spaniard will remain in Maranello for a fourth season alongside Charles Leclerc in 2024.
Ferrari started the current regulation period well, heading both drivers’ and constructors’ championships in the early stages of 2022.
It soon lost ground to Red Bull in both and was this year left playing catch-up for much of the season.
The F1-23 proved heavy on its tyres in the opening races before an upgrade addressed some of those issues at the Spanish Grand Prix.
That included a new sidepod and floor as it adopted an aerodynamic approach more in line with that of Red Bull.
“The launch will take place on the 13th of February, the day before Valentine’s Day, and then you will see the rest on the 13th,” said team boss Fred Vasseur.
The timing of the launch will see the car make its public debut eight days before pre-season testing gets underway in Bahrain, with the opening round at the same venue little over a week later.
“We have the test a bit before and it’s quite a challenge to put everything together,” said Vasseur.
“It means we had no other option. I think also some other teams are doing it on the 14th, but it’s quite challenging to be ready for Bahrain.”
Fundamental limitations with the F1-23 are expected to see a markedly different design for next year, though Vasseur stopped short of suggesting it was a revolution.
“I don’t know if it is the right word,” he said.
“We have the same regulations now three years in a row, you can’t change massively the situation.
“Again, it’s tenths of a second, it means that it’s 0.1 or 0.2 percent of performance that we are looking for.
“For sure, we have to do a step and I don’t underestimate this step.
“We are changing 95% of the components of the car, perhaps you can consider that it’s a revolution, I don’t know if it will be.
“The expectation is that we are focused on ourselves, we are doing a good step forward but in the end it’s always a matter of comparison.
“You can improve by 100, if the others are improving by 120 you will look stupid, if they are improving by 80 you will look like a mega-hero.
“The most important is to continue to push, to continue to develop, to have the drivers into the middle of the project and they are fully involved in the development.
“So far we are going in the right direction.”
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