Ferrari unveil the new SF-24, but don’t call it a ‘revolution’

Ferrari have unveiled the SF-24 in an online presentation, the final car Carlos Sainz will race as a Ferrari driver before stepping aside for Lewis Hamilton at the end of the year.

Last year Ferrari launched the SF-23 to great pomp and ceremony as they unveiled the car in front of a 500-strong audience at their Fiorano circuit.

The car failed to live up to the hype with the Scuderia stuttering to a single win in 22 Grands Prix as they finished the season third in the Constructors’ Championship where they were 454 points down on runaway championship winners Red Bull.

Ferrari have taken the covers off their 2024 challenger, the SF-24

As such this season the Italian stable opted for a low-key event, instead wanting to do their talking on the track.

The Maranello team unveiled the SF-24 in an online presentation, and a brief one at that.

They showed off a car decked out in the traditional red colours with slashes of white and yellow that will be driven by Charles Leclerc and Sainz. For the latter it will be his final season with Ferrari having been dropped in favour of signing Hamilton as Leclerc’s team-mate for the 2025 championship.

Tuesday’s launch marked the start of what Ferrari hope will be a revitalised challenge as they look to beat Max Verstappen and Red Bull to the championship titles.

Ferrari last won the Drivers’ crown with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 before adding their final Constructors’ trophy a year later.

Since then they’ve had to watch as Red Bull, Mercedes, and now again Red Bull have dominated the F1 circus.

After last year’s failures, missed opportunities included, Ferrari have overhauled their F1 challenger with team boss Fred Vasseur declaring the SF-24 is “95 per cent” new, but he stopped short of calling it a revolution given the stable regulations.

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“Revolution – I don’t know if it is the right word because we have the same regulation now three years in a row that you can’t change massively the situation,” he said.

“Again, it’s a matter of tenths of seconds. It means it’s all 0.1 or 0.2 per cent performance that we are looking for. It’s not five [per cent]. For sure, we have to do a step. I don’t underestimate the step.

“We are changing 95 per cent of the components of the car. Perhaps you can consider that it’s a revolution.”

The Italian stable has continued with last year’s front push and rear pull suspension design with the car featuring a notably larger diffuser than its predecessor.

Sainz, who will later today put the car through its pace in a shakedown at the Fiorano circuit, told the media including PlanetF1.com that the car was “behaving differently” in the simulator but that the Scuderia won’t know for sure if it is a step forward until it is on the track.

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