2024 Ferrari F1 car reveal: SF-24 launched with promise of improved strategy

F1
- Last updated: February 13th 2024

Ferrari has launched its new 2024 SF-24 F1 car, calling it a "big departure" from its predecessor and promising strategic improvements to go with increased pace. See full details plus driver line-up and key personnel

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Motor Sport

Ferrari has launched its 2024 F1 car, aimed at fixing the flaws that held it back in 2023 — both in the car and on the pitwall.

The team says that the SF-24 is more drivable, which should allow Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to extract more performance while, at the same time, Ferrari has overhauled its race weekend operation in an attempt to eliminate the errors that cost it points last season.

It will be the final year for the Leclerc-Sainz partnership, before Lewis Hamilton joins in 2025. This car represents the final opportunity for Sainz to win more races in red before making way for the new recruit, and he was the first to get behind the wheel in a shakedown at Ferrari’s Fiorano circuit just after the car was revealed.

“I’ve been looking forward to this moment the last couple of months,” said Sainz in a video to accompany the launch. “We spent a lot of hours in the simulator developing this car. We have been putting a lot of hours, a lot of emphasis onto the small details of this car that I hope is going to give us an edge this year.

“It definitely feels different. The target is for the car to give more confidence to the drivers and to be able to extract more lap time. Last year wasn’t easy on that front but this year I’m pretty sure we have made steps in the right direction.”

Last year’s car offered its drivers a narrow window of performance that, when dialled in, delivered pole positions and a race win for Sainz in Singapore. But engineers struggled to get the car in that zone and often failed, leaving the drivers struggling and tyres degrading fast. The car was also sensitive to changes in temperature and wind speed or direction, said Leclerc.

Ferrari’s technical director of chassis and aerodynamics, Enrico Cardile, said that the new car had been completely revamped in all areas, describing it as a “big departure” compared with the previous two.

Side view of Ferrari SF-24 car at launch
Right rear view of 2024 Ferrari SF-24 F1 car at launch
Rear view of Ferrari SF-24 F1 car at 2024 launch

But it’s not only the design that has undergone a transformation. Ferrari has also been reworking its trackside operations after another season where its reliability and strategists were found wanting.

Leclerc suffered a grid penalty in the second race of the season, after failures with both of his allowed control electronics units, At the British Grand Prix, a conservative strategy led the team to a two-stop strategy, while others were much faster by making one stop. At Circuit of the Americas, Leclerc qualified on pole but fell back to sixth after a poor one-stop strategy — although the result was academic, as he was disqualified due to excessive wear on the plank under his car.

“We haven’t been opportunistic enough, We left behind too many points,” said Diego Ioverno, sporting director and head of vehicle operations. “Whatever car you have, execution comes to play and you have to execute properly.

“We had many reliability issues, some mistakes, problem of communication and these are, operation-side, the topics that we are trying to tackle over winter with preparation, revised procedures, with different methods of preparing the weekend and the execution of the sessions.”

 

Team principal Fred Vasseur underlined the team’s target to maximise the points it collects this year. “We have to be focused on the weaknesses of 2023 and be much more opportunistic in terms of points scored,”he said.

“We need to continue the progression we had at the end of the 2023 season. We need to be able to score more points, to be more performant, to be more efficient, which was probably the biggest weakness of last year.”

Ferrari 2024 F1 car live stream

Ferrari launched its F1 car with a short video, which you can view above. It was in contrast to last year’s high-profile event where, in front of a packed grandstand, drivers gave interviews about the season ahead, a screen showed pre-recorded segments and then Leclerc and Sainz flipped a coin to see who would be the first to test drive the new SF23.

 

2023: An underwhelming year with a hint of promise 

Charles Leclerc – second at the Yas Marina Circuit

Charles Leclerc showed impressive form in the latter stages of 2023 — could it result in a title challenge in 2024?

Ferrari

In 2023, Ferrari began with high hopes following a season of success in 2022. But after Leclerc retired in Bahrain and neither car finished inside the points in Melbourne, an underwhelming tone was set.

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Continued struggles with tyre wear and race pace made it difficult for either driver to compete at the front end of the grid, although Leclerc was able to take pole position and a spot on the podium in Azerbaijan as well as in Austria.

Like most, any efforts or signs of progress were quickly overwhelmed by the performance of Red Bull, which dominated the season entirely by winning 21 out of the 22 grands prix across the season. But it was Ferrari who prevented the Milton Keynes marque from a perfect run.

Carlos Sainz took pole position and a dramatic race win in Singapore as F1’s reigning champions floundered behind him — Leclerc holding Verstappen to a fifth place finish through an excellent display of defensive driving.

Leclerc’s skillset would be on full display for the remainder of the season too, with further podium finishes in Belgium, Mexico, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. If he begins 2024 with the same run of form, Ferrari may once again dream that its long wait for another world champion is soon over.

 

2024: Ferrari looks for a fight

Ferrari’s goal in 2024 is to close the gap to 2023’s runaway title winners, in the hope of slowly building back toward the regular race-winning performance it had early in 2022.

Problems with reliability and excessive tyre wear seemed under control as the team left Abu Dhabi having secured its third podium in four races, but the question remains: will it buckle again once under the strain of a title challenge?

Still widely regarded as a world champion in waiting, Leclerc should have no issues in leading from the front alongside Sainz who was F1’s only non-Red Bull grand prix winner in 2023 and continues to have equal status to his team-mate in 2024.

After taking over as team principal at Ferrari in January of last year, the 2024 season will mark the first full campaign under Vasseur’s management.

 

Ferrari 2023 F1 driver line-up

Leclerc Sainz
Charles Leclerc Carlos Sainz
  • Carlos Sainz will be replaced by Lewis Hamilton in 2025
  • Charles Leclerc has extended his contract in a multi-year deal
  • Antonio Giovinazzi acting as reserve driver for 2023 season

 

Key personnel

Team Principal and General Manager: Frédéric Vasseur

Ferrari F1 team boss Fred Vasseur

Vasseur is confident he can get Ferrari to maximise its potential

Ferrari

First appearing in the F1 paddock in 2016, acting as team principal for Renault, Vasseur has spent the majority of his career managing the midfield. But a move to the Sauber Group in 2017 to become its managing director as well as its team principal is a true indicator of the value he can hold.

As team principal, he oversaw the development and meteoric rise of Charles Leclerc, who made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018 before being promoted to Ferrari the following year. The Frenchman has also had a working relationship with Ferrari since 2019, when Alfa Romeo Racing began running Ferrari power units in its F1 cars. So Vasseur was an obvious candidate to replace Mattia Binotto who resigned from his post at the end of the 2022 season.

Vasseur joined in early January and hasn’t had an answer to Ferrari’s biggest problem just yet, but 2024 could show the first signs of improvement.

 

Head of Power Unit Area: Enrico Gualtieri 

Engine reliability was a sore point for Ferrari in 2022, causing retirements in Spain, Azerbaijan and Austria during the early stages of its title campaign, and forcing the team to limit the power unit’s output.

But it’s an issue that is rumoured to have been solved for 2023 under the watchful eye of Enrico Gualtieri, who has headed Ferrari’s power unit area since 2019.

The Italian has been a major part of F1’s most successful constructor since 2010, when he was appointed Head of Engine reliability – experience he will need to put to use if Ferrari want to content for another world title.

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