For Scuderia Ferrari, up to now, the start of 2023 Formula 1 season is proving to be rather negative, considering the poor outcome of the first two races of the championship, the Bahrain Grand Prix and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. In fact, the men in red are experiencing an unexpected wake up call after a development work carried out during the winter and a lot of confident comments regarding a season that, at least in terms of expectations, should have been the one in which Maranello would be able to challenge Red Bull for both Formula 1 world championship after the excellent pace of the F1-75 car in 2022, which was limited by several power unit issues in the second half of the season.
Unfortunately, the SF-23 car showed disappointing performances in both the Bahrain and Jeddah race: two events in which the SF-23 underperformed, showing lack of downforce, tire management problems and lack of data correlation between the simulations and the reality on the track.
Not only that, since the start of the 2023 Formula One season, the Maranello team’s activity was made even more complicated by a restructuring process represented by some key changes, wanted by Frederic Vasseur but not only, in the organization of the team: the departures of Jonhathan Giacobazzi and Gino Rosato, the demotion of Inaki Rueda, the promotion of Ravin Jain to head of strategy and, finally, the resignation of David Sanchez from the role of head of vehicle concept.
A restructuring process which, in fact, does not seem to have finished yet within the Ferrari Formula 1 Racing Division, according to what was reported by the Italian daily newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’: it seems that even within the engine department there are some organizational changes planned for some time. Since the development work on the 2026 power units has already started, with a strong presence and importance of the hybrid part in the development of power, Ferrari has decided to appoint Wolf Zimmermann as head of the project for the new generation of power unit.
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A logical choice, that of appointing the German, ex AVL in Graz (an engineering contractor which has done work for several F1 manufacturers) and in Ferrari since 2015 (one of the key figures of Ferrari’s recovery phase in terms of engine power following the poor 2014 project and the one who designed the Superfast engine that equipped the F1-75 and is now mounted on the SF-23 challenger), to the management and coordination of the new engine since Wolf Zimmermann is considered a “wizard of the hybrid” and therefore in possession of the knowledge necessary to manage a project in which, as mentioned, the electrical component will have a major role.
“In the meantime, more subtly, a programmed reshuffling is underway on the engine manufacturers front. The clearly more powerful figure is that of Wolf Zimmerman who is in charge of the 2026 power unit project. Engines that will be 50% electric and will respond to well-defined criteria differently from the current ones, especially in the efficiency ratio between energy/hour rather than fuel/hour. The single-cylinder prototype of the new power unit started on the test bench a few weeks ago” – Corriere della Sera informs.
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