Lots of work needed on the SF1000 says Binotto

Ferrari showed a glimmer of their performance capabilities on the final day of pre-season testing, but boss Mattia Binotto says that every area of the SF1000 needs improvement if they are to compete with Mercedes across the season.

Having failed to match the pace of Mercedes in the early stages of pre-season testing, Binotto was open about the improvements needed from his Ferrari team if they are to succeed in 2020.

"The overall performance needs to be improved," said Binotto. "The power unit, even set-up. I don’t think there is a single area where we need to focus but all the areas.

"The rear wing introduced in the second week is a wing with a bit less downforce and less drag. The one we brought on the first week had maximum downforce. The parts we got on the car are at least working as expected.

"We are where we thought we’d be. We knew we had put a lot of drag on, we knew the power unit performance, so that is the speed we were expecting. The others are a lot faster on the straights, that is the situation."

As with every team, Ferrari need to balance the development of their 2020 car alongside their new 2021 car, a design which will work to completely new aerodynamic regulations.

At some point, each of the ten teams will elect to switch focus to their 2021 efforts and Binotto admits that his decision will be based on the opening few races of the season.

"It's a compromise that we need to find out," he said. "We are very early in the season, and you cannot compromise the entire season itself, so at the start we certainly keep pushing on 2020 as much as we can, because it's time for us to understand the car and the weaknesses. Hopefully, it is things that we can address as soon as possible.

"If I see after a few races, and we will still understand that the gap is too big, then maybe it's a considerations that we can take into account," he added. "But it's early stage right now. I think it's just few days of testing."

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