In addition to a dramatically revised calendar and new protocols, the outbreak resulted in a delay in the new regulations originally planned for 2021, as well as a carry-over of the 2020 chassis to this season.
But the pandemic has also triggered a bizarre quirk for Ferrari when it comes to naming its chassis.
We’ve already seen Alfa Romeo announce that this year’s car will be the successor to last year’s C39 to the C41 – but that was done because the team wanted to adjust the VIN to match the racing year.
That’s why it decided to jump from the C39 to the C41 for 2021.
Ferrari is making a similar leap with its long-running new car project numbering system, but for very different reasons.
The Italian team has given a project number and an official chassis name every year for a long time.
For example, last year’s SF1000 was tagged with project number 671 when it was created at the team’s Maranello base.
Logic would therefore suggest that the SF21 to be revealed ahead of the pre-season tests in Bahrain will be the 672.
However, this will not be the case – although due to the rules for freezing the chassis, introduced as a cost-saving emergency measure, the car will have many transmission components.
Instead, the car’s project number was officially referred to as 673.
The reason for the jump is simple: in the early stages of 2020, when the world was much more normal, Ferrari had started work on the brand new car in 2021.
At Ferrari, the ground effect machine, which is set to usher in an era that F1 hopes will dramatically improve the race, has already been awarded project number 672.
When the FIA delayed the introduction of the new rules until 2022 and banned teams from working on them a lot, Ferrari had to park their new project for a while.
Now that the teams are free again to develop as much as they want, Ferrari and its challengers in 2021 and 2022 are ready for action again – albeit with titles that are not in order.
Work on the 672 project, set to become a challenger in 2022, will therefore continue.
In the meantime, the Ferrari 673 (SF21) will service the main chassis of the SF1000 but will include some limited updates that the Italian team was able to make under the token system of the F1.
There will be a revised rear end, not only because of the new basic rules, but also for the introduction of a new gearbox. A new narrow gearbox allows the rear suspension to be redesigned and alleviates the nervousness at the rear that has hampered Ferrari’s drivers over the past year.
The SF21 will also feature a brand new engine that Ferrari hopes will address the power deficit it suffered from in 2020.
The post The COVID-19 impact leads to the peculiarity of the Ferrari F1 project number first appeared on monter-une-startup.
