Scuderia Ferrari head of power unit, Enrico Gualtieri, admitted that the Italian side had to go for a ‘daring’ design with its new power unit for the 2022 Formula 1 season, especially taking into consideration the engine development freeze which starts this year.
Scuderia Ferrari will be looking for its first race win since 2019, as the Maranallo team struggled to match the power output of its rivals after the FIA’s technical on engines from three years ago. Since that moment, Ferrari tried to regain the lost performance, with a major improvement which could be seen in the second part of the 2021 Formula 1 season as a result of an upgraded hybrid system that helped the team finish ahead of rivals McLaren on the fight for third place behind Mercedes and Red Bull.
That V6 has formed the basis for this year’s design, the last season in which the engine manufacturers are allowed to bring updates to their units before an engine freeze comes into effect. That runs until the end of the 2025 campaign:
“It has certainly made an impact,” Enrico Gualtieri explained, as reported by The Race – “Let us say that, compared with past years, it has stimulated, even forced us, to go for even more daring design solutions, given the significant time limits, in particular the coming freeze. We have had to take all our programmes to the absolute limit. We have had to keep the door open for all possible evolutions, right until the last moment. We have certainly had to take all the necessary risks. We had to speed up our development even more in a world that is already going at a thousand miles an hour.” – Ferrari‘s head of power unit explained.
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The engines’ specifications will be homologated and frozen this year and will be done in two separate moments. The first milestone focuses on the engine, turbocharger, MGU-H, engine exhaust system, fuel and engine oil, with the deadline for any changes or upgrades to these presented to the FIA before the champions events starts, with their freeze date of March 1.
The second, which is for the MGU-K, energy store and control electronics, has to be done by 1 September.
Enrico Gualtieri was asked about the Italian side’s new V6:
“There is so much that is new and innovative in this power unit. Suffice to say that the percentage of new components of the internal combustion engine, compared to the previous season is one of the highest of recent years. There is innovation in terms of content but also architecture, the vehicle distribution and the layout in general. Compared with the past, we have had to look at and adopt different solutions and this I think, in our particular environment, is something that is continuously innovative. The internal combustion engine and the turbocharger are definitely the key elements of the 2022 power unit at the start of the season The hybrid system is another step in the evolution we brought to the track at the end of last season. The electronics have had to change a lot too, having to adapt to the needs of a completely new car concept and an engine that is very different from last year’s. It represents the third step of our development path. The first stage was the engine at the beginning of last season, the second was the evolution of the hybrid system, brought to the track at the end of 2021.” – Enrico Gualtieri concluded.
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