Canada may not have shown us the true pace of Ferrari’s engine with the raft of upgrades the team brought to the race. Austria, conversely, may have and the verdict is not good.
Explaining the improvements, Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel says that while they have made gains, they still aren’t where they want to be:
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“I think it was a lot closer than we have been in the past but surely we were hoping to be closer to put some pressure on,” Vettel said.
“Especially the opening laps were very impressive from their side; they were more than three-tenths quicker per lap. And more towards the end [of the first stint] it was stabilised around one, two, three tenths per lap, which was also the gap we had to Williams. So I was pretty isolated running in third until the first stop.
“But overall, I think we were closer the whole weekend – unfortunately not yet close enough to really put pressure on.”
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Red Bull’s Christian Horner says that Formula 1 might do well to look at allowing Renault and Honda to make performance upgrades in order to get a more competitive field. Just like they did in 2008 when Renault was down on power form the other engine manufacturers.
Regardless, the frozen engine format is not a positive thing for Ferrari, Renault and Honda. If you can’t attempt to improve your performance in an engine-dominated series (which F1 is now), then it defeats the purpose of participating in F1 and spending the money these teams spend.
Hat Tip: Sky Sports F1
They devised an ungodly-expensive engine formula, then limited development of it…in order to control expenses. Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, that wraps it up.
F1 cut back on testing to save money. Then they intrusive a very expensive engine spec. And Honda as a new engine supplier can’t test its furiously unreliable engine, costing McLaren points and eventually money.
I think Max Mosley admitted after the fact you can’t save money by limiting development because the big teams will always find new and inventive ways to out spend their competitors.