Scuderia Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz should be able to challenge Red Bull and Mercedes in the 2023 Formula 1 season, with the Maranello team set for an important power unit boost. The Italian side is confident its new power unit will enjoy a boost of 30bhp boost, as reported by the Spanish digital portal SoyMotor.
While the power unit development freeze has already been introduced, as Formula 1 teams will soon focus on the new generation of engines and the new rules that will come into effect starting from the 2026 campaign. Yet extra pace can be found by working on the reliability issues that have affected the Maranello team in 2022: this is the key focus of Scuderia Ferrari’s plans ahead of the next campaign. Italian journalist and Ferrari insider Leo Turini confirmed that Ferrari were forced to run their engine with limited power in the second part of the season due to several power unit technical failures.
Charles Leclerc started the championship with an amazing race win in Bahrain and confirmed the strong potential of the F1-75 car in round 3, by winning the Australian Grand Prix and proving that the Monegasque driver was ready for a title fight. Unfortunately, the Ferrari power unit suffered from overheating issues and forced Charles Leclerc to retire while leading the Spanish Grand Prix and the Baku Grand Prix, as the Monegasque was heading to easy wins.
The power unit issues, alongside some poor strategy decision from the Maranello pit wall, helped Max Verstappen recover the point deficit and even build a solid gap at the top of the standings, which allowed him to secure the title before the summer break. Scuderia Ferrari have been working hard in the last months to introduce a reliability fix on the engine for next year. And this is reportedly how the Italian side will be able to get as much as 30hp more out of their PU. Since the Scuderia were forced to dial down on the power during 2022 at times due to fears that the power unit would let go, improving reliability would mean a greater power reserve to unleash on track.
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Former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto admitted earlier in the season that the Italian side focused mainly on performance and not reliability, aware that Ferrari had to recover the gap to Mercedes and Honda and knowing that reliability concerns would be solved later on.
He confirmed the Maranello team even had some fears regarding their reliability beheading into the initial round of the 2022 F1 season: “We pushed the limits of performance beyond what would have been a normal reliability plan, and this is because we knew it would be important to close the gap on the competition before the development freeze for four seasons, knowing that reliability issues can always be resolved later. This is not to say that we arrived at the first race thinking we were completely unreliable, that was not the case. In the winter tests no problems emerged, but we knew we did not have an ideal situation. The problems we had on track which had not emerged in the bench simulations, I think they are typical unexpected events of a new project, and we have to take them into account, I’m not entirely surprised by what happened.” – the former Ferrari boss said at that time.
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