Officially the calendar will start on March 28 from Bahrain, but the presentations of the cars have already begun. Let's find out together the main news and what awaits us in the immediate future.
For all # F1 fans, the engines are heating up. The McLaren has just been presented (on February 15th) and the Alpha Tauri will be presented very soon, and gradually all the other cars. Ferrari will present its new racing car on March 10 in streaming, while Mercedes will present its new silver or black arrow on March 2.
All the other cars will see their presentation between February 19th, when the AlphaTauri presentation is scheduled, and March 12th with the Haas expected to close the lap.
However, there are some interesting innovations, and as many say they could be traced back to a formula that allows you to facilitate Mercedes competitors. Clearly there is nothing declared by the International Automobile Federation, but there is still the possibility for the competing cars to exploit some interesting details.
First of all, aerodynamics . In fact, each team will have a number of hours for research in the wind tunnel which will be inversely proportional to the ranking obtained in the world championship just past.
Mercedes, for example, will be able to manage 90% of the resources and follow the other teams an additional 2.5%. Therefore, the team that will have the most chance to manage the car inside the wind tunnel is Williams with 112.5%. In this way the Ferrari has a 12.5% advantage in resources over Mercedes . On this aspect Mattia Binotto will try to fully optimize the extra percentage, in order to fill the gap with the car that has definitely monopolized the last few years.
In terms of performance, only the car positioned on the starting grid will be able to say how much if Ferrari has really improved over the winter. The desired improvements in terms of horses will realistically be of the order of 20 or 30 more horses. In fact, it is unlikely that there are any clear-cut improvements in terms of performance. Very often, in fact, we observe news that are leaked from the web of even 50 more horses as regards Formula 1 and as regards Ferrari.
Realistically, however, we do not believe that this is true also because Ferrari, like the other cars, is facing the last year of an epochal cycle of Formula 1. Let's always remember that from 2022 everything will change and therefore the cars are already positioned in the development phase. to get the most out already with the new rules from 2022. Hence the clear conviction that the 2021 cars will be similar to those of the past year.
From an aesthetic point of view, the news will not be there, in a clear way . The car will in fact be similar to the one we have seen, with the nose for example that will remain the same. The rear axle will probably be modified slightly in order to meet the loss of load points in that area.
That's why Matteo Binotto will try to get the most out of those 12.5 percentage points he can get in the wind tunnel.
Even if Formula 1 cannot be completely reversed in 2021, we will always try to have something more than in 2020, a year to be truly forgotten for the red from Maranello.
credit photo By Asaf Livne Pikiwiki Israel, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32877671