Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc have helped unveil the team’s 2020 challenger, the SF1000, at an extravagant launch ceremony at the iconic Romolo Valli Theatre in Reggio Emilia, some 30km from Ferrari’s Maranello hometown.

After a spectacular introduction, featuring an orchestra, choir and ballet dancers, as well as speeches from Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri and Team Principal Mattia Binotto in front of a video backdrop of Ferrari’s F1 history, the new car made its appearance.

Binotto confirmed that the SF1000 – so called to celebrate the year in which Ferrari will contest their 1,000th Formula 1 World Championship event – was an evolution of last year’s SF90, the car that finished second to Mercedes in the 2019 constructors’ standings – with the technical regulations having remained largely stable for 2020 ahead of Formula 1’s major rule upheaval in 2021

READ MORE: Our first take on Ferrari’s SF1000 F1 car

However, Binotto was keen to stress that Ferrari had tried to push their concept forward for 2020 as much as possible.

“The starting point was the car of last year, the SF90,” said Binotto. “But certainly we have been extreme on the concept as much as we could… It may look similar to last year but it’s completely different to the one of last year, and a lot of the concepts are very extreme on [the SF1000].”

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