F1 | Ferrari’s Team Principal Mattia Binotto on upgraded Power Unit: “It was important for us to take risks now, in view of 2022”
As 2022 gets closer, the Italian Team wants to be ready to fight for the championship again and introduced a totally new ICE component in their Power Unit
After a disastrous 2020, Scuderia Ferrari has tried its best to recover from last season, which saw them finish in sixth place in the constructors championship.
In the first half of the season, Mattia Binotto talked a lot about certain PU developments they were working on, but we had to wait until the Russian Grand Prix to actually see the upgraded ICE component they worked on. In fact, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc had to face a grid penalty in Russia and, at the following GP, his teammate, the Spaniard Carlos Sainz had to do the same.
They both tested the new PU and although Ferrari’s team principal does not want to quantify the “advantage of time” they have now, because, as Binotto himself commented: “We don’t have a clear idea of the gap we covered; it depends a lot on the circuit we race on”, the expectation of the Italian Team were confirmed.
Both Sainz and Leclerc were protagonists, respectively of the Turkish and the Russian GP. Starting both P20, they had a brilliant comeback. Leclerc almost finished on podium at last week’s Turkish GP, but his desire to stay out with his inters for the remaining 18 laps of the race, could not be satisfied and a late pit-stop stopped him having the chance to get on the podium.
The target of Scuderia Ferrari now, is to assure the third-place in the constructors championship and this new PU seems to be their best chance to gain it.
The gap with the current occupant of the third-place, McLaren, is only 7.5 points, and with both teams now having almost same possibilities in terms of power, everything will revolve around the performances of the respective drivers for the remaining 6 races of the year.
On the risk they took, Mattia Binotto, Ferrari’s team principal declared “We knew we were risking, but we wanted to arrive prepared as much as we could to 2022, when all the engines will be frozen”.
Binotto also added “It’s not just ICE power, but also energy recovery and I think that without these new specifications, both Sainz and Leclerc would not have had all the opportunities they had in the last two races”.
The Italian team from Maranello seems on the right road to comeback to race winning and potentially fighting for championships.
