The Italian team has a renewed sense of energy going into the 2024 season after acquiring Lewis Hamilton over the winter.
The high-profile acquisition represents the end of what team principal Fred Vasseur and CEO John Elkann of Ferrari have dubbed “Operation Relaunch,” which aims to return the Scuderia to the top of the grid.
Ferrari intends to atone for some of the issues that kept Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc from competing last year in the SF-24.
Even though the team’s 2023 car demonstrated incredible speed over a single lap in qualifying, it was unable to match the standard Red Bull team’s race pace or consistency.
Thanks to Sainz’s performance at the Singapore Grand Prix, the team ultimately only managed one victory during the campaign.
With the SF-24 now more advanced, Ferrari aims to make considerable progress in this area and lessen the peaky-aerodynamic performance that overshadowed its Formula One efforts during the previous season.
Ferrari is excited about the progress that has been achieved and the plans that will carry it into the Hamilton era, even though it is too soon to determine realistic aims for the SF-24 car and producing a Red Bull beater may be too much to anticipate.
That much was demonstrated the night before the Ferrari debut when Elkann decided to visit the F1 factory in an unusual move to watch the final touches being done to the new SF-24’s stickers.
It was an indication that Elkann is now heavily involved in Formula One and that he is closely monitoring the grand prix business.
With the rumored arrival of some 20 new members to assist the squad in taking the actions it believes are necessary to push towards the front, optimism within Maranello is expected to rise over the following few weeks.
