Two years on the road through the desert after reaching a secret agreement with the FIA in relation to an illegality in its previous power unit, Ferrari has once again stood out in one of the aspects in which it has given most success to throughout the history of Formula 1: the engine.
The 066/7 , which is the acronym for the project internally renamed ‘Superfast’, is one of the factors that has brought Ferrari back into the fight for victories in the 2022 Formula 1 season, but it has also been your biggest headache.
Added to the great performances have been, occasionally but frequently, a fragility that has prevented several potential victories in the first part of the season for the team from Maranello, affecting both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Both Ferrari drivers were forced to mount their fourth power unit before reaching the summer break, suffering their respective penalties. That’s not good news, also because Mattia Binotto has admitted that some changes will take months to come.
However, the man from Maranello , speaking to Motorsport.com, explained why the Italian team’s technicians preferred to focus more on performance, probably paying less attention to reliability.
“I don’t think we’ve pushed too hard on that, because it’s never enough performance-wise, but we’ve prioritized it over reliability,” Binotto admitted.
“Then you have to remember that also on the power unit front there have been a number of restrictions on the number of hours the test bench can be used, and those restrictions have obviously had an impact on our work.”
“When there were no limits, it was enough to increase the hours of work on the test bench, both in terms of performance and reliability, but now, with the limitations of hours, you are forced to make decisions,” added Binotto .
After two unsuccessful seasons, Ferrari was aware that it had to catch up in this respect, especially with regard to Mercedes and Honda . For this reason, the engine department dedicated most of its time to working on a more powerful engine that would put Sainz and Leclerc in the fight for victories both in this campaign and in the following ones.
“We pushed the limits of performance further than we would have with a normal reliability plan, and this was because we knew it was important to catch up with our rivals before the performance freeze hit, as on reliability issues we can still continue working later”.
“By this I don’t mean that we went into the first race of the course thinking that we were not very reliable, that was not the case. In the winter tests there were no problems, but at the same time we knew that we did not have an ideal situation.”
“Furthermore, the problems that we had on the track and that hadn’t come up in the test bench simulations I think are typical problems of a new project, so you always have to take them into account, so I’m not surprised what has happened” Binotto concluded.
