Lighter, more powerful and efficient SF-23 to debut at Fiorano track
A Ferrari logo is emblazoned in front of the team's garage. Barcelona February 2022.
Straight after the reveal to the world, Ferrari will give the reportedly lighter and more powerful SF-23 a run around at their home track.
It is now under a week until Ferrari reveal the car they hope will take them one better in 2023 as the SF-23 looks to build on the F1-75’s P2 finish in the 2022 Constructors’.
Despite the car still being kept behind the red velvet rope of Maranello, reports emanating from the Italian heartland suggest that Ferrari are very confident in the early numbers they are seeing.
Reports last month suggested the SF-23 would be “one second faster” than its predecessor and now Auto Motor und Sport report that the car will be “lighter, more reliable, aerodynamically more efficient and with more engine power”.
The German publication also says that after the car is shown to the world on February 14, it will immediately be given a run out on Ferrari’s Fiorano track before a full shakedown at Imola.
Ferrari revealed this week that the 2023 car would be called the SF-23, in a return to its recent naming convention following 2022’s F1-75 which commemorated 75 years since Enzo Ferrari first fired up a Ferrari F1 engine.
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The SF-23 will be the first of Fred Vasseur’s reign with the former Sauber CEO and team principal moving to Maranello following Mattia Binotto’s resignation last year.
Vasseur is charged with earning Ferrari’s first championship since 2008 and sees him operating at a different end of the grid then he was previously used to.
He is also a man with many close relationships to other team principals in the paddock such as Toto Wolff but he believes his close friendship with the Silver Arrows boss will not hinder his work at Ferrari.
“I think globally, it’s an advantage, but we have to be clever,” he told Autosport.
“I know that we will fight on track, we will fight with the stewards, we will fight in the FIA, and we will fight for the Concorde Agreement. This is life.
“But, at the end of the day, I think for the global picture, it’s an advantage also to have a very good collaboration between teams.
“And on this side, when the common interest of the teams or F1 will be to have discussions and to find an agreement, I think it will be a huge advantage to have a good relationship.”
