After a hot 2020 season, in which Ferrari only finished sixth in the constructors’ championship, the Maranello team has made great strides with its SF21, which has a greatly improved engine.
Ferrari’s new car has enabled Charles Leclerc and new signing Carlos Sainz to challenge McLaren at the top of the F1 midfield and are just five points behind the Woking outfit after four races.
Regardless of Ferrari’s current championship position, sporting director Mekies reveals that Scuderia has already committed to focus fully on next year’s car for the all-new F1 technical regulations.
“We are pretty much in the process of making the transition, we are already doing that,” said Mekies in Barcelona.
“If you want to give him a number when you call him 90% [or] 95% whatever you want to call it, but it’s pretty much where we are. “
Ferrari’s Barcelona form led McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl to believe that more car updates would be crucial to keeping the battle with Ferrari alive and confirmed the team’s plans to “bring more updates in the upcoming races” .
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When asked if Ferrari might be tempted to devote more resources to developing the current car in an attempt to beat McLaren, Mekies replied that his team will not change their approach.
“That is very clear to us, we are focusing on 2022,” added Mekies.
“The fact that the field is tight, that you might need a few hundredths or a few tenths to move from sixth to third place, won’t change our strategy, the focus is on the next year.
“We have already converted most of our resources to it. That doesn’t mean that some details on the car won’t change from now on, as we all do with what we learn on the racetrack. “
“But the focus is on the next year, even if the field is narrow. For us it is a clear decision. “
Mekies doesn’t think Ferrari’s lack of 2021 updates will be frustrating for the racing team, stating that the car’s constant level of performance will give his team a good measure of its own performance each weekend.
“I think it brings some good news with the racing team because your progress as a racing team is always somehow blurred by the development effort you put in relative to completion,” he added.
“You never know exactly how far the competition has advanced, you know how far you have advanced. But this time there will be very little development.
“We know that there are only a few tenths, sometimes maybe a few hundredths, between the cars, and it’s up to us at the factory and on the racetrack how well we prepare for the track, how well we have to prepare. how well we perform, how well we adapt. “
“For the racing team, I think it’s good news because it means we have that and that’s what we’re going into a race, and the fact that the field is very close in this regard is one in my opinion great challenge for “all of us.”
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