Ferrari is aware it’s power unit reliability has not been great in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season, but this concern can be fixed only in the “medium/long-term”, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto has admitted, ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
The Maranello team focused a lot on the engine for 2022, with work carried out ever since the start of the previous campaign and after a strong first impression this season, a series of failures have been affecting all three Ferrari-powered teams during the last few weeks. The most important one was of course Charles Leclerc’s engine failure at the Circuit de Catalunya, while he was heading for a dominant win in the Spanish Grand Prix, a problem for which the Italian side did not want to provide too many detalis. In Monaco, just seven days later, customer teams Haas and Alfa Romeo had three MGU-K failures between them.
Yesterday Charles Leclerc once again reported a possible power unit issue over the team radio during the second free practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, but later confirmed it was due to the fact that he had done a settings switch and forgotten about it.
“Reliability is always a challenge especially for a power unit,” Mattia Binotto said on Saturday, during his press conference in Baku – “And you’re always trying to look for better performance. Our power unit department did an incredible job from this season to last season in terms of improving performance. And certainly that’s affected and risked the reliability. The start to the season has been great. We had some issues in the last few races with Charles in Spain and in Monaco with our customer teams. There are always concerns, I don’t think we can say this is easy to fix or you fix it in a race only. There are concerns but I know our team is pretty strong in trying to ensure the reliability for the next few races, cope with it, try to make sure at least in terms of usage we’re protected, and for the medium-long term, try to address it.” – he continued.
The huge changes and innovations to Ferrari’s 2022 Formula 1 PU were within the internal combustion engine itself as the energy recovery systems were effectively a carry-over from the late-2021 upgrade. While the V6 had to be homologated for the next four years before the current F1 campaign started, there is still the possibility to upgrade the ERS elements, including the MGU-K, until September.
At the same time, more specification modifications are permitted only for reliability reasons. The Italian side had reportedly brought a revised MGU-K specification alongside its second power unit a few weeks ago at the Miami International Autodrome, that did not impact the performance level of its engine.
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No other details have been provided so it is not known if this was a reliability improvement for a specific problem, a weight-saving measure, or something else.
Team Principal Mattia Binotto of course did not want to share any details on whether the run of reliability issues is related to a new specification of component in-season.
“The components are very similar, in terms of the electric motor, to the one of last year. We introduced an evolution by the end of last season increasing the voltage. And certainly, the overall experience we’ve got so far from those electrical motors, is reduced compared to what we had before. There’s still something to learn, to improve, to address. But it’s not a short-term concern.” – the Ferrari boss concluded.
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