Ferrari is looking to the 2022 Formula 1 season in an ambitious way: the 672 project, the ground-effect car, is growing in the Maranello Racing Department and begins to build up the inevitable pressure as we wait for Ferrari to return to fight for the world title.
The 065/6 power unit was an important step up from last year’s engine, but still lacks a power gap from Mercedes and Honda’s powertrains. In Maranello, therefore, hard work is being done to create by December a power unit capable of fighting at the top.
The “Superfast” engine designed by Wolf Zimmermann, the engineer in charge of advanced studies, is running on the test bench, which has been revised by the staff headed by Enrico Gualtieri. There will be no separate turbo and compressor as Mercedes and Honda have (Renault will also adapt to this solution), but they will remain united as today.
This does not mean that there will be important innovations in the architecture of the engine with a new intake box that will allow for a particularly low and compact six-cylinder in favor of aerodynamics.
The name “Superfast” comes from an explosion phase in the combustion chamber which must have very fast ignition times. New very long intake ducts will be introduced, capable of creating turbulent motions that will favor the flame propagation speed, in order to favor a simultaneous increase in power and a reduction in consumption.
The goal is to increase with the pressure in the chamber and to ensure an indispensable reliability, it was necessary to resort to new alloys. The ambitious targets of power and reliability have not yet been reached, but the first rumors that filter through are not far off thanks to more sophisticated materials, the result of very advanced studies.
The development constraints dictated by the quotas of the test benches make things much more difficult, but this does not mean that they are not confident in Maranello, in the awareness of having reached a turning point.
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