Ferrari is planning to roll out with a “completely different car and engine” for the 2016 Formula 1 season

Ferrari is planning to roll out with a “completely different car and engine” for the 2016 Formula 1 season.

That was the claim made by president Sergio Marchionne as he visited the Monza paddock last weekend.

Marchionne told Sky TV that the Maranello team would have a “completely re-designed” car for next season, “[2016] is a completely different environment, we’ve been working on the 2016 power unit and the car for a while.”

“The difference between this season and other seasons is that we never abandoned. 2015 remained front and centre in our development work.”

“In 2016 all bets are off. We’re entering the season with a completely re-designed engine and car; and I feel relatively comfortable that Ferrari will be back and a true competitor, as opposed to being a catch-up artist.”

The Ferrari boss added, “I’m delighted with the work that Maurizio has done. Him, James Allison, the guys that have worked on the engine, they’re a bunch of people that have really worked their tail off over the last 12 months to remedy what I consider to be some real technical shortfalls.”

“Those issues are mainly behind us. I think we’re dragging along today some technical limitations about power development of the current power unit, because they’re issues that cannot be fixed in the time that we have.”

Many were surprised when they heard those words, as the regulations are not changing considerably for 2016, ahead of the expected rules revolution for 2017.

So with Ferrari already closing the gap on dominant Mercedes, might Marchionne have been stretching the truth?

It seems not. Indeed, while Mercedes deployed all 7 remaining engine development ‘tokens’ ahead of Monza, Ferrari’s upgrade cost them only 3.

 

“We believe that Ferrari now has the peculiarity of our system that you call the ‘magic button’,” said Mercedes’ Toto Wolff, referring to a power boost that is most often seen in qualifying.

Next, the remaining 4 tokens will be deployed by Ferrari later this year, and will pave the way for an engine architecture change that will also fundamentally shape the design of the 2016 car, Autosprint claims.

Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene commented: “We must also think about the work of the aerodynamicists. Today they have difficulties to continue their development programme because of the dimensions of the power unit.

“If you look at a photograph taken from above, you can easily see that our car has a wider rear end than the competition,” he added.

 

Source: grandprix247