Ferrari’s Superfast engine started the 2022 championship giving the clear feeling of having closed the power gap from Honda and Mercedes that it had paid in the previous two years, when the FIA had put the “muzzle” on the fuel system and triggered that secret agreement, useful to remedy alleged irregularities never demonstrated on the power unit.
The 066/7 designed by Wolf Zimmermann and managed by the working group headed by Enrico Gualtieri has aimed high. To a performance unit, since the PUs would have been frozen after being homologated for a period of four years.
Mattia Binotto did well to want a “heart” capable of rivaling on par with the other Manufacturers, aware that the FIA would have allowed to work on reliability to reach the duration of seven to eight GPs of life to cover a season with just three engines.
Ferrari garage
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
An exercise that has become very difficult given that only the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel and the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo remained in target, all the others have already gone into penalties with two rounds to go, a sign that the engine’s palm more reliable is up to the Mercedes F1 M12 E Performance.
Little satisfaction, because in the hybrid era of the Star it is the only unit not to have won even a victory with four teams using it (Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams).
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, at the pit stop
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Ferrari blamed the mechanical failures that crippled the F1-75 when it seemed to rival Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB18 for the world title. It was a magical illusion and little more, because the duration of the engines was never adequate to the needs, so much so that the rotations led Charles Leclerc to unmark six thermal engines and as many turbos, while Carlos Sainz, stopped at five, he could even out his own score in the Brazilian GP.
The fears that accompanied the birth of the red car about the reliability of the power units proved to be concrete: different components yield to a mileage that does not exceed three thousand kilometers and Maranello did not have the problem of resorting to fresh units every time there is one. was needed.
Sainz has engine 6 from the Italian GP, while Leclerc received the latest update at the United States GP. The Spaniard must make another substitution, while it was hoped that the Monegasque could express his full power in the last remnant of the championship to give some more certainty to Gualtieri’s staff in view of next year.
The 066/7 of Leclerc mounted in Austin has the experimental parts in view of 2023. The design is the same as the other homologated units, but the materials and treatments have been changed in the hope of finding the durability that the Gestione Sportiva are looking for.
Mattia Binotto team principal of Ferrari
Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
“We changed the last power unit in Austin – explains Mattia Binotto -. Whenever we have introduced a new power unit whether it was for Charles or Sainz we have always tried to bring updates from the point of view of reliability which are improvements but are not definitive. Charles’ last unit had some improvements but they are not yet the definitive solutions that we will try to achieve for the next year ”.
The road to reliability, therefore, is proving to be more fraught than expected: the Cavallino technicians have been forced to reduce the powers or to review the electronic management mappings to avoid reaching the tightness limit too soon.
The team principal professes himself optimistic in winning next year’s challenge, as if he knows that the parties capable of facing the 2023 season with the same air of the Honda that dominated the 2022 world championship are coming, but let’s not hide the fact that the fans of the Scuderia expected to see a … clear signal already in the final of this championship, seeing the red go back to victory after a wait that lasted from the Austrian GP.
It would be good for the morale of a team that does not seem to have taken the main road yet: it is true that in the field of power units the reaction times are not the rapid ones of aerodynamics and chassis, but the Maranello team does not seem to give the feeling of being mature to fight for a world championship. Will reinforcements arrive?
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