Ferrari counting on tokens to cut gap to Mercedes

2015 F1 season

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Ferrari admit it will be difficult for them to reduce their performance deficit to Mercedes from the first race of 2015, but expect to get closer as the season progresses.

Mattia Binotto, who took over as the team’s power unit director last month, said Ferrari has a lot a catching up to do after the team revealed its new SF-15T for 2015.

“The engine was clearly not enough performant [sic] compare to our main competitor,” he said. “This was one of the weakness of last season.”

“We don’t believe the weight was a real issue. The power unit for the Australian Grand Prix will represent a clear improvement, but we believe there are still significant further steps during the season.”

“The gap was such that it will be very difficult to challenge Mercedes from the first race,” he added. “Our objective is clearly to reduce the gap during the season.”

Ferrari will use their new 2015 power unit from the first race of the year and take advantage of the opportunity to introduce upgrades during the year which has been granted by the FIA.

“The use of tokens for power unit development during the season is clearly helpful in this respect,” said Binotto.

“Our objective, in term of tokens, is really to spend only few at the start of the season, to maintain a significant opportunity of developments during the season,” he added. “The current 2015 power unit has already gain a significant amount of performance, and we will keep pushing during the entire season.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Ferrari counting on tokens to cut gap to Mercedes”

  1. “We don’t the believe

    I know his English is pretty bad but that’s a typo I think :)

    Ferrari doesn’t seem very ambitious this year …

  2. So Ferrarri will go without a title for another year then? Typical, although without Alonso they are gonna struggle to get any decent points at the beginning.

  3. They seem to have defaulted to solely relying on politics these days. So sad for the Italian fans.

  4. Good news for Honda :)

    1. Yeah, average no. of tokens will be more.

  5. I think the new staffs at Ferrari had too little time to have any influence on the SF15-T. Mr.Binotto here has only been the engine manager for a month a so, probably just enough for him to get to know the staffs and get used to the place.

    I, a Ferrari fan, am looking at a very gloomy season for Ferrari. 2014 was disastrous for their standards, and they spent the Winter shuffling the staffs, drivers, even the president and the team boss while the others have developed a lot. They are heading in the right direction, but it may take at least 5 years for them to get what they want. I do hope that I’m wrong though.

  6. If you read the Sauber article, they actualy mention that this years Ferrari power unit requires more cooling than the last one, which I found interesting.

    I have no idea if this is a good or bad thing, or neither.

    1. Interesting. If it is just as efficient, it means the engine is more powerful. But increasing cooling hinders aero efficiency. Given that power was the greatest weakness, for their sake, they should focus first on the engine output and then on aero consequences.

    2. I think this has somehow to do with a fundamental design flaw. Last year, they over-estimated the influence of aerodynamics vs. engine power on overall performance, so they decided to build an engine that was slightly smaller (especially the turbocharger) than the maximum allowed, because they thought the aerodynamic gains would outweigh the lack of power. That’s probably the first thing they started spending tokens on, which in turn explains how the new engine needs more cooling.

  7. To be honest I can never quite believe what comes out the mouth of anybody from the most political team on the grid. They are either over talking themselves down or over talking themselves up (at 2 race wins that would be unlikely) However Ferrari rarely talk straight down the middle of the road.

    1. Yeah because all the teams play a straight bat.

      Ron Dennis a beacon of truth?

      1. Or Horner? Especially Horner?

    2. The common belief that Ferrari is the most political team on the grid is getting old and quite frankly very annoying. It’s like the others aren’t as much politicals as they are (Dennis, Horner anyone?) if not more. Please, give us a break…

      1. Dennis really isn’t. Is because you people don’t understand anything about the man.

  8. So Ferrari will be making a token effort this year?

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