Ferrari SF1000

Ferrari targeted maximum downforce with “extreme” SF1000 – Binotto

2020 F1 season

Posted on

| Written by

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says the team has adopted “extreme concepts” in its new car for the 2020 F1 season.

While little has changed in the technical regulations during the off-season, a key goal for Ferrari has been to increase the downforce its car produces, which was seen as a weakness of its predecessor.

“The regulations have remained stable so it’s difficult really to transform completely the car,” said Binotto at the presentation of the new SF1000. “The starting point of that car is the one of last year, the SF90.

“But certainly we have been extreme on all the concepts as much as we could. We developed the car, tried to look for the maximum aero performance as first trying to maximise the downforce level.

“So the entire car, the monocoque, the power unit layout, the gearbox, has been really packaged in a way to have a very narrow and slim body shape. I think that’s quite visible on it.”

Ferrari has also revised the design of its suspension in a bid to give its drivers a greater range of set-up options from track to track.

[smr2020test]”The suspension has been designed to have greater flexibility when being on the race track for the set-up,” said Binotto. “I think obviously trying to adapt the set-up to whatever best suits the two drivers whatever the circuit.”

While the car is based on last year’s design, Binotto says the finished product is considerably different to the SF90.

“We put a lot of effort to keep the weight down. We’ve worked a lot on the power unit, not only for packaging, but we worked on each single component, try obviously to improve the performance but to cope as well with changing technical regulations where the oil consumption will be reduced by 50%.

“So it may look very similar to last year but believe me it’s completely different to the one of last year and a lot of concepts are very extreme on that car.”

Ferrari SF1000
Ferrari SF1000

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2020 F1 season

Browse all 2020 F1 season articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

19 comments on “Ferrari targeted maximum downforce with “extreme” SF1000 – Binotto”

  1. Cristiano Ferreira
    11th February 2020, 18:37

    From extreme speed to extreme downforce… knowing Ferrari tends to make things slid, i bet this car is between a poor’s man Red Bull and a poor’s man Mercedes :P

    I hope they can accomplish Mission Winnow this season.

    1. :-) Don’t we all love the talk of “extreme” this and that nonsense?

      Don’t they always bring a dud to the track when they talk about how extreme it is? Good luck with the winnowing Ferrari.

      1. Extreme Dud is also an accomplishment!

  2. Happy to see them investing in the 2020 car. Let’s see how mid-season development progresses – for Ferrari and their competitors – though, as they’ll definitely be reallocating resources to 2021 by then.

  3. Mission spin-now ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Looks slow already.

  4. Max downforce doesn’t sound good, but going for extremes in packaging to get a slim shape means top speed might still be there so promising IMO.

    1. Why doesnt max downforce sound good? It’s been a winning formula since 2010-2019 thus far

      1. Because it usually leads to drag.

  5. So this is chassis #1 and #2, for first week of testing? According to some reports, they have developed another version, a la Mercedes 2019 winter testing for the second week.

    If that’s true, some of the features in this one can be just distractions.

    1. I bet the new concepts are already on the car, the front end might very possibly change – especially with regards to the nose cone. I’m not sure whether the media sources are really trustworthy, Ferrari has presented really innovated central part and the bottleneck of the car.

  6. Let’s hope it’s “drivable” downforce

    1. And that “Extreme” doesn’t extend to disappointment.

  7. I must admit I cringed a little when I saw the word “extreme” used.

    Let’s hope that they’ve not changed so much that they’ve fundamentally flawed the car as has been their propensity in the past.

    They were pretty much as fast, if not faster, as their competitors last year so there wasn’t a huge need for major design changes unless they were needed to address something they couldn’t solve any other way.

    However, at the end of the day, it always seems like it’s a case of Ferrari finding ways to lose races rather than them not having a good enough car. Hopefully as well as a redesigned car, they’ll have put some effort into ensuring that the strategists etc have improved.

  8. Maximum downforce = Minimum Sbinnala

  9. A lot more stress on PU due to draggy car.

    1. OR, less straight line speed, which went OK for Redbull in the first part of the previous decade!

  10. Let me try to remember one particular team and one very loud driver, when that team went for “extreme” slim packaging…

    I remember it didn’t play well for ALL parties involved.

  11. Yeah right, maximum downforce with less rake. The guy thinks we’re blind fools. It’s obvious they’re after optimum solution and not of any extreme solutions. Fake news I’d say.

Comments are closed.