Ferrari are gunning for their second Grand Prix victory of the season at the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend. There are a few unknowns heading into the race, and the Scuderia will look to capitalise.
First off, the drivers haven’t raced at the Shanghai International Circuit since 2019. That means none of them have had the chance to tackle it in the current generation of cars.
And perhaps more importantly, there will be a brand-new format for this weekend following changes made to the sprint-race schedule. The sprint shoot-out and the race itself will fill the traditional FP2 and FP3 slots.
That will leave the teams with only one hour of practice on Friday morning before the truly meaningful sessions kick in. In the circumstances, Damon Hill thinks Carlos Sainz can deny Red Bull another one-two.
Sainz claimed the only non-Red Bull victory of the season back in Australia when he capitalised on Max Verstappen’s retirement. But Verstappen and Sergio Perez issued an emphatic response as they cruised home in first and second.
Ferrari remain outsiders for now but, crucially, they have a ‘massive’ upgrade package in the pipeline. They will introduce significant updates to their SF-24 car at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix next month.
The expectation is that these changes will deliver an extra two and a half tenths of performance. If it all goes to plan, Red Bull’s long-held supremacy may finally come under threat.
What Ferrari have said about Red Bull copy claims
Writing for it.motorsport, journalist Franco Nugnes addressed the possibility that Ferrari had seen Red Bull’s RB20 in winter testing and then ‘evaluated’ it in the wind tunnel. If so, did they then decide to copy their rivals’ concept with their own updates?
Red Bull’s chief designer Adrian Newey said recently that the team have virtually perfected their vision at this stage. The Milton Keynes outfit have won the last two titles in dominant fashion, including a record-shattering triumph in 2023.
However, figures inside the team’s HQ in Maranello have refuted any notion of a deliberate copy. Instead, they say that work on the ‘B’ version of SF-24 began before they’d even had a glimpse of the Red Bull.
What’s more, Ferrari hired several new engineers over the winter, with some of them coming from the reigning world champions. That might explain any similarities that we see between the two cars later in the year.
Lewis Hamilton looking forward to Ferrari move
In addition to hunting down Red Bull this year, Ferrari are currently laying the groundwork for Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at the start of 2025. The Scuderia confirmed arguably the biggest driver move in F1 history back in the winter.
Any progress they make this year in terms of understanding the current generation of cars will also help them next season. Indeed, it won’t be until 2026 that we see the next major reset of the rules.
Hamilton is having a pretty miserable time of it at Mercedes right now, having scored just 10 points from the first four races. But Karun Chandhok reckons he’s finding solace in Ferrari’s improvement.
The seven-time world champion said recently that he’s looking forward to embedding himself in a new environment with the Italian giants. He’s hoping, above all, that they can deliver his eighth world title.
Hamilton will form a mighty partnership with five-time race winner Charles Leclerc, and Fred Vasseur expects it to bring the best out of the Monegasque. Leclerc admits he’s been struggling relative to teammate Sainz so far this year.
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