Ferrari broke into its worst season in 40 years in 2020 when the team struggled with both a dragging car and a poorly performing engine, making its speed on the straight a particular weakness.
The team worked hard over the winter to resolve the issues, with an entirely new power unit developed ahead of the 2021 season to make up for the deficit.
Ferrari F1 boss Binotto reported last month that the first data from the test bench runs of the new engine were encouraging, but that the assessment would be reserved until it was used on the track.
After the first two and a half days of pre-season testing in Bahrain this week, Binotto said Ferrari had seen a noticeable increase in its straight-line speed compared to last year.
“We know how the engine runs on the test bench, [but] If you put it on the car, you can see the speed on the track and ultimately the relative speed to the others, “said Binotto when asked by Motorsport.com about Ferrari’s engine profits.
“When we were here in Bahrain for the qualifying race last year, we were very slow here on the straights. We didn’t get into Q3 and were very far from pole.
“When I look at the data now, I at least think of the speed, on the straight the speed is okay. There doesn’t seem to be such a disadvantage as last year.
“We know that it’s not just about power, but also about the car’s drag, as we said many times last year. But let me say that both of these helped improve our speed on the straights.
“Today we have the feeling that it is no longer a disadvantage.”
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Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc felt the SF21 car started showing “promising signs” earlier this week, while Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen also noted an improvement in the Ferrari customer engine he was using.
Ferrari focused on developing the rear of the car under the frozen regulations for 2021, with Binotto reporting that the initial data correlated well with what the team expected from their own simulations.
“We tried to develop the rear of the car as best we could,” said Binotto.
“It was more important for us to understand the connection with the wind tunnel and the simulations, that is, to collect and compare data.
“We are pretty happy with the correlation, which means that we have a good starting point at least for the next simulations or possible developments.
“Correlation was a key factor back then. So far, at least, it’s looking pretty good.”
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