Ferrari boss reflects on possible engine change for Carlos Sainz in 2022 F1 Brazil GP

Scuderia Ferrari had to make compromise in Mexico City, which ended up conditioning the races for Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc and sadly making the third-to-last Grand Prix of the 2022 Formula One season the most disappointing this year.

The worst qualifying and the worst race of the current championship, with both cars one minute behind Max Verstappen and even behind the two Mercedes. Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto was very surprised because he did not expect this poor weekend, quite the opposite. They had prepared the car to take care of the tires, a maximum load aerodynamic configuration and a limited power unit with the goal of avoiding reliability problems.

The Ferrari boss wanted to defend the team after the Mexico City weekend, describing it as something punctual “that does not correspond to reality”:

“I am sure that Brazil and the rest of the season will go better. We already had a bad race at Spa and we reacted. We are going to take advantage of these two weeks to prepare for these last two races. And it is likely that we will change the engine for Carlos.” – Mattia Binotto pointed out.

Before the Mexican GP there had already been talk of replacing Carlos Sainz’s engine, at least the turbo component. Finally, it was decided to reduce the power of the engine and be able to preserve it. But it is clear that it has not worked because the top speed was insufficient to keep up with Mercedes and Red Bull’s strong pace at the 4.304-kilometre Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.

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But the problem wasn’t just the engine. “It is true that we had problems with the power unit, but also with the whole car. We lacked traction, the balance was not good, it was difficult to get the car into the corners. There was not a single issue, but multiple small problems. It is clear that we did not prepare well for the race”, he admitted.

Ferrari hopes that Mexico was just a one-off. Mercedes hopes that Mexico has not been and that in the last two tests they can fight Ferrari for second place in the Constructors’ championship. The Maranello team still has a solid gap of 40 points which Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have to defend in the final two races this season, the Brazilian Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.