Charles Leclerc got up early this Thursday to complete a very special walk between the Maranello factory and the Fiorano circuit. Starting from the same door through which Enzo Ferrari took his first car, the 125S, in 1947, the Monegasque drove his SF1000 through the streets of the Italian town to the track, where the first session of this strange preseason awaited him.

A few days after the premiere of Mercedes, Renault or Racing Point, Scuderia returned to work in Fiorano with the SF71H, its 2018 single-seater, given that FIA regulations require that private tests be carried out with material of at least two years of antiguaty. However, this return to activity, just 110 days later, seems like the only good news in the team led by Mattia Binotto .

The poor performance of the SF1000 in the February tests in Montmeló has forced engineers to work against the clock for the past few days, with the aim of reducing the distance with Mercedes and Red Bull. Two weeks after the start of the 2020 World Cup with the Austrian GP, ​​pessimism seems the dominant note in Maranello.

The SF90 as a model

For the moment, Ferrari will debut a gearbox at the Red Bull Ring, where it will also mount an evolution of its engine with which it hopes to achieve an increase in power of 15 HP. However, the implications seem far more delicate in the long term. Especially if it is confirmed that the design of the SF1000 was based on a wrong plan.

On February 11, during the presentation of the SF1000, Binotto clarified his model had been, inevitably, the SF90, a car that in 2019 did not meet expectations. "The entire car, the monocoque, the layout of the power unit and the gearbox have been designed so that we have a very narrow and thin rear end," revealed the head of sports at the Teatro Municipal Romolo Valli.

The aggravating factor now is that Ferrari will not be able to dispose of that controversial SF90 power unit, brought forward after a private agreement with the FIA. And what is even worse, the Covid-19 crisis will force him to keep the car from 2020 until 2021, when Carlos Sainz replaces Sebastian Vettel in the garage .

Improve on slow corners

One of the objectives of Laurent Miekes , sports director, was to alleviate the difficulties of his racing car in slow corners, the great workhorse for its drivers during the last World Cup. And some improvement could be seen in Barcelona in February, despite the loss of top speed on the straights.

In any case, Binotto will have to handle all this pressure from the first day of work on the track. For this reason, the little kilometer traveled by Leclerc between Via Enzo Ferrari, where Maranello is located, and Via Gilles Villeneuve, headquarters of the Fiorano circuit, seemed so long this Thursday for Ferrari.

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