Ferrari F1 2022 car launch date revealed

Ferrari have announced the date on which their 2022 challenger will be unveiled. Maranello will be unveiling the Scuderia Ferrari SF22 on 17 February. The car will be driven by Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc, in their second year together on the team.

The team is hoping to return to the front of the grid as challengers this coming season, after enduring two consecutive difficult seasons in midfield. In 2020, Ferrari endured their worst season in 40 years and finished sixth overall in the constructors' championship.

While they recovered the following season to beat long-time rival McLaren to third in the constructors, the Scuderia once again failed to score a victory for the second consecutive year.

However, with the youngest driver line-up in the team's history, Maranello is hoping to challenge Mercedes and Red Bull once again in 2022. Their aim is to break their victory drought since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix.

The Italian team stopped developing their 2021 challengers from the mid-season onwards. They focussed all their resources on developing the 2022 challenger, which is built according to the new sweeping aerodynamic regulations.

Team principal Mattia Binotto is optimistic about the team’s chances in the upcoming season. He is hoping to make it tougher for Red Bull and Mercedes in the championship battle.

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Ferrari reportedly lost nearly half-a-second worth of development in 2021 by redirecting resources to develop the 2022 car

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has claimed the team lost nearly five-tenths of a second's worth of potential performance mid-way through 2021. It was a result of redirecting the team’s developmental focus towards the 2022 season.

Speaking at a post-season interview with GPfans, Binotto said:

"I see that if you are fully convinced or you are putting significant effort and resources to our usage on development, 0.5 seconds is what you may achieve.

"Now, we said our priority was to develop the 2022 weaponry because of the budget cap. But for us, knowing that in 2021 we were coming from 2020 and we could not have reached the best, for us, it was important even to focus on what has been done in the future and trying to continuously create solid foundations for the future.”

After a difficult 2020 season, Maranello underwent aggressive development during the winter of 2020-21, adapting the uncompetitive SF1000 to a much faster SF21. Throughout the first half of the 2021 season, the team brought a string of upgrades to the car, despite the budget cap.

However, after the summer break, Maranello switched away from the 2021 car to focus exclusively on 2022. The only upgrade to come after the summer break was at the Russian Grand Prix, where the team brought an upgraded power unit.