Ferrari have had a major rethink of their Formula One car, but updates to make it go faster would not be ready until the season’s third race, team principal Mattia Binotto said on Tuesday.
Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc would instead start the virus-delayed season in Austria on Sunday in cars similar to those that they wrapped up testing with in Spain at the end of February.
“The truth is that the outcome of the tests led us to take a significant change of direction in terms of development, especially on the aerodynamic front,” Binotto said on Ferrari’s Web site. “First, we had to understand why we did not see the results we had expected on the track and how much to recalibrate the whole program as a result.”
“It would have been counterproductive to continue in the direction we had planned, knowing that we would not have reached our goals,” Binotto said. “Therefore we decided to come up with a new program that looked at the whole car, knowing that not all of it would be ready for the first race.”
Champions Mercedes and also Red Bull looked faster in testing, with Ferrari coming away from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmelo, Spain, recognizing that they lacked comparative pace.
The season, which was supposed to start in Australia on March 15, has two races scheduled at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, before moving to Hungary and then Britain.
“Our aim is to introduce the updates at the third race on July 19 at the Hungaroring,” Binotto said, adding that Ferrari had used the weeks since the Maranello factory reopened to analyze the car’s behavior with simulation work and input from the drivers.
“In Austria, we must try and make the most of every opportunity and then in Hungary,” Binotto said. “We will be able to see where we are really, compared to the others.”
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS