La Ferrari she went on holiday without much hope left about the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship. The struggle with the Red Bull seems to lean towards the Austrian team, in which car, wall and drivers, in particular Max Verstappen, they border on perfection. “The season is still long“, it was said after the burning defeats in Imola, Barcelona and Baku. But if there was only one problem in Maranello, things would be simpler. The truth is that Overall, Ferrari has shown that it still has a lot to do to aspire to the world title. Excellent potential, but still a lot to prove. One of the critical points to work on this season, to safeguard the next one, is the question reliability. However, this problem is "easier" to solve than the human one. The search for power, for those horses that made it deficient in comparison to Red Bull and Mercedes, led Ferrari to sacrifice the reliability factor. For this Leclerc will face a more complicated second part of the season, with 2 or maybe 3 additional penalties.
Ferrari powered, a disaster
Both the Red's drivers, as well as those who are part of the two customer teams, namely Haas and Alfa Romeo, have, in the best of cases, already reached the maximum limit of the Power Unit components, or in the worst, already missed some grid penalties . Leclerc had to start from the back Canada – to rebuild an engine fleet that went up in smoke during the races Barcelona and Azerbaijan - while Sainz in France, penultimate appointment before the summer break. This led Ferrari to a forced choice for better manage your engine fleet and avoid further recalls.
Leclerc, double penalty arriving
The F1-75 has the right characteristics to implement a comeback and we saw it in both starts from the back of the two squires of the Red team. Rather than risk a DNF compromising its position in the standings even more, the team decided to plan - as reported by FormulaPassion – further changes. There Mercedes for example it is slower, but on its side it is fortunate to be extremely constant and reliable. The team in the constructors' standings is already behind Ferrari, with which it shares the number of podiums for the season - 11 - despite having an inferior car.
“We are working on reliability and managing it, also because it will have to be definitively resolved for next season. Certain changes cannot be made in a few weeks. However, this does not mean that it will not be managed this season." he said Mattia binotto over the weekend in Hungary.
Another factor that leads us to think of the exchange as the only solution is the regulation on engine freezing until 2025. From the September 1In fact, the teams will no longer be able to intervene even on the hybrid part, if not for reliability issues. Which forces Ferrari to bring any update by that date. This will lead to Charles and Carlos having to serve a five-place penalty on the starting grid for each new element introduced. But when will we see these new features and the respective penalties?
According to FormulaPassion the choice should fall on Spa – first stop after the summer break – and Austin in the United States, the fourth to last event of the season. Both tracks on which you can overtake. To avoid a third penalty, the team will probably aim to preserve and manage the mileage of the internal combustion engine, the ICE, an element that should be replaced more frequently.
Source: FormulaPassion
