Ferrari will launch their 2020 Formula 1 car on Tuesday 11 February, eight days ahead of testing at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya which begins on 19 February.
Testing has been reduced to six days ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix weekend which begins on Friday, 13 March in Melbourne.
Team boss Mattia Binotto told the official F1 website, “We will launch the car very early. I think we will be the earliest. The reason why we are anticipating the launch and the unveiling and then moving on is we must do some dyno homologations before going to Barcelona.
“We are launching the car on the 11 February 2020. Soon after we’ve got an intense program of bench [testing] before we go to Barcelona,” added the team boss.
The successor to this year’s potent SF90 is the final car of the current hybrid era, ahead of the new F1 regulations coming into effect from 2021. Nevertheless, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc will be hoping that they will have the ammo to end the Red title drought of over a decade.
Next season fires up with the first of two three-day F1 tests at the Spanish Grand Prix venue from 19-21 February, and the second from 26-28 February before heading Down Under for the start of a mammoth 22-round season.
Meanwhile, Ferrari bosses have moved to play down ongoing speculation that Mercedes’ sic-time F1 World Champion is set for a move to Maranello in 2021. Officially the team is committed to their current volatile pairing.