Ferrari has entered much of the first half of the 2022 Formula 1 season with some concerns. The F1-75 has proven to be the best performing car during several tests, but it has also suffered from reliability problems that have scuppered the Maranello team’s plans and caused them to lose victories that seemed feasible for the Italian team.
Throughout 2022, there have been several times that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have had to face this issue. The problems, especially focused on the power units, have prevented them from scoring victories and points that would have kept Ferrari in the fight for both titles.
Coming into the summer break, Mattia Binotto took stock of Ferrari’s reliability, where he stated that the team’s power unit could not be improved in days or weeks, but would require more time.
After Hungary , the director of the Ferrari team added that this, like some other changes, could not be made during the season, but would be done with a view to 2023. Despite this, the team would try to solve the problems during the races. remaining until the end of the current championship.
“Reliability-wise we are working on it, we are also managing it during the grand prix weekends,” Binotto admitted during the post-race Hungarian briefing to media outlets including Motorsport.com. .
“There are certain changes that take days and weeks to make. So they will definitely be fixed next year, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be fixed already this season.”
In addition to reliability, Binotto also referred to problems that require a rapid response from a regulatory and political point of view. We are talking about the FIA’s directive aimed at reducing porpoising -for safety reasons- and avoiding bottlenecks, one of the technical issues on the agenda in recent weeks.
Starting with the Belgian Grand Prix, to ensure AOM is applied equally to all teams, the FIA is also introducing measures that will ban tricks whereby some teams flex their bottoms and boards to improve performance.
The director of the Ferrari team continued in his line, also highlighting how damaging the delays in certain regulation options are for next season.
The concepts of next year’s single-seaters have already been put on paper and now it is too late – and too expensive – to take action, also taking into account the presence of the budget cap that has the function of restricting the spending of the teams.
“Regarding the Spa directive, it has been spread, it exists and it will be applied in Spa. It is a sure thing. Regarding the regulations for next year, we are taking too long, it seems to me that it is too late. No changes can be made so significant so late, also taking into account that we have quotas for wind tunnel hours and there is also the budget cap that limits us.”
“At this point, the concepts of the single-seaters are fixed. Going to change them now does not make sense because it is a non-existent problem . Even in Hungary nobody was talking about rebounds and I am sorry that we are delaying because of a non-existent issue. We are talking about nothing and lengthening it. I don’t think anything will change. If not, it would be crazy,” Binotto concluded.
