Ferrari to debut ‘version 2.0’ with ‘RB20-inspired’ SF-24 at key European race

‘Version 2.0’ of Ferrari’s SF-24 will reportedly debut at their first home race of the season, Imola, as the team “evaluates advantages” with 2025’s cars expected to be very similar ahead of 2026’s rule changes.

Formula 1 will introduce new regulations for the 2026 season. But while the engine rules are set in stone, the sport has yet to decide the full extent of the technical ones.

Ferrari’s Imola upgrade is ‘RB20 inspired’

Although the 2026 cars will retain the ground-effect aerodynamic philosophy of today’s cars, the actual rules have yet to be decided.

But what is clear is that it will be a costly endeavour with a report suggesting as much as 80 per cent of 2025’s budget cap will be set aside by the teams for their 2025 challengers.

It means the cars that the teams run this season will, everything considered, be next year’s cars.

“The 2026 single-seaters will absorb 80 per cent of the resources,” reports formu1a.uno, “so more targeted choices will be needed as performances converge – as long as we don’t take wrong turns during the journey.”

It has Ferrari exploring all options with “version 2.0” of the SF-24 set to hit the track at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola.

Declaring a ‘massive package’ that will take to the ‘extremes the apparently conventional concepts present on the SF-24 since the beginning of the year’, the revised car has been dubbed a ‘version 2.0’ by the Italian publication.

Going on to claim that the upgraded car will ‘adopt an aerodynamic design that was initially tested and set aside, but which found confirmation during the parallel evaluation’, one notable difference with the upgrade is that the ‘radiator inlets will be reversed, adopting a different compromise to guarantee greater development opportunities.

‘The SF-24 will be equipped with a new inlet, which will not only be more extreme in terms of openings but – contrary to the initial orientation – will take up the idea of ​​the Red Bull with the inverted lip.’

It is said to ‘RB20-inspired, but not an actual copy’.

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Imola will be the stage for the first of three upgrades

But while that has been billed as ‘aggressiveness that in some respects goes against the trend of the development plans adopted by Ferrari in recent years’, the publication said in-depth CFD and wind tunnel evaluations have ‘provided more interesting gains than expected’.

Ferrari remains the only team since Mercedes in 2022 to beat Red Bull in a Grand Prix with Carlos Sainz winning in Singapore last season before adding this year’s Australian GP to his list of victories.

Technical director Enrico Cardile says he’s open to exploring all opportunities to further improve the SF-24.

“Our car has a more stable platform and we need flexibility, if we evaluate advantages we will adopt them, we are ready to change plans,” he said.

The Imola package will reportedly be the first of three big upgrades from Ferrari for this season.

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