The Ferrari team saw how the performance of its power unit suffered a severe setback in the 2020 season, something that caused the Italians to fall hopelessly into the middle zone, and that was even worse for the teams to which it supplied its engines; Alfa Romeo and Haas.
The Maranello team made good progress with the powertrain last year, enjoying a late-season update with a new hybrid system, which was the basis for the completely revamped 2022 power unit.
Qualifying in Bahrain demonstrated Ferrari ‘s move ahead with the power unit, as Charles Leclerc took pole position while teammate Carlos Sainz was third. In addition, Valtteri Bottas with the Prancing Horse-powered Alfa Romeo was sixth, ahead of another Italian driver, Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, who was seventh.
The Ferrari engine’s lead is speculated to be around two-tenths of a second per lap over the rest of the grid, and the progress of those in red led Haas boss Guenther Steiner to claim they now have the best power unit in Formula 1.
“I think the Ferrari engine is the best, I honestly think that, and that gives them a lot of credit, because they were in the same place as us. They had to put up with a lot of shit from people about it,” said the head of the American team. .
“They recovered, did their homework and came back with something very good,” Steiner continued.
Bottas will be on the third row in his first race with Alfa Romeo and, however, he considered that there were no big differences compared to other manufacturers: “I think Ferrari has done a good job and they have taken a step forward compared to the year past, so it’s an improvement, for sure.
Max Verstappen, who took second place on the starting grid with the Red Bull and Honda power unit, missed pole by just over a tenth, saying that while Ferrari ‘s performance “should not be just to the engine”, the team “is clearly doing well on the straights”.
Pierre Gasly, meanwhile, made it through to Q3, but noted that “Ferrari-powered cars are really fast”, which meant his team “has work to do if we want to get to the top of the table”.
McLaren, who saw how Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris fell far behind in the standings, in 18th and 12th place respectively, through his boss, Andreas Seidl , considered that they should focus on the comparison with Mercedes, who have the same engine.
“We have to recognize that regardless of the problems we’ve had, we haven’t got the full performance,” said the German. “The most important thing is that we look at this and compare ourselves to Mercedes, as we lose around a second to them.”
“That is the best reference we can have, and that is what we focus on as a team. We know that we will most likely lack grip, something that can be due to the lack of mechanical rather than aerodynamic grip, and it is key to put our efforts into find yield as soon as possible,” Seidl said.
