F1, Ferrari Power Unit: Charles Leclerc to take grid penalties at Spa-Francorchamps and Austin
08/05/2022 05:42 AM
“We are working on reliability and at the same time managing it, because it will be resolved definitively for next season. Some changes cannot be implemented in a few weeks. However, this does not mean that it will not be managed this season”. This is how team principal Mattia Binotto spoke about the reliability of the Ferrari power units during the final press conference held at the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix, last weekend in Budapest.
Previously, after the Paul Ricard event, the Ferrari boss had emphasized that managing reliability means in any case getting out on the track on Sunday with the awareness of being able to cross the finish line without any more problems, as seen in the first part of the championship: Charles Leclerc had to retire in Spain and Baku, while Carlos Sainz’s race ended prematurely due to power unit issues in Austria. For now, the Monegasque has started from the back of the grid at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada, a weekend in which he introduced two new power units to have more parts available after the problems experienced in Barcelona and Azerbaijan, while Carlos Sainz in France also started from the last row due to the introduction of the fourth power unit (Charles has already reached five).
On the horizon there are new races with penalties on the agenda at Ferrari, especially because on 1 September the power units will be definitively frozen also for the hybrid part and therefore to be able to use the updated component in terms of electrical elements ( MGU-K in particular) it will be necessary to take a five-place grid penalty imposed by regulation for each new element introduced (and no more 10 for each element as in Canada since from the second extra component onwards the penalties are halved by 10 to 5 positions).
According to information reported by formulapassion.it, there are two weekends in which Ferrari has already planned the use of a new power unit for Charles Leclerc and consequently take penalties on the starting grid. This will take place at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps when the season resumes after the summer break and at Austin in the United States on the occasion of the fourth to last round of the 2022 Formula One season. It cannot be ruled out that Ferrari could in fact take three penalties in the second part of the season.
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At the moment the two weekends on the agenda are practically equidistant since there are still nine races on the calendar. Depending on the number of new elements that will be introduced, Charles Leclerc could serve from 5 to 20 penalty positions on the starting grid. It is highly probable that the component which will be changed regularly will be the thermal engine, the ICE, the mileage of these elements, in fact, will be managed as much as possible to contain just two Sundays of having to fight back from behind, on tracks where overtaking is certainly not a problem as is the cas at Spa and Circuit of the Americas, which have long straights and numerous overtaking opportunities.
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