The SF-25 captured everybody’s consideration on the night of February 18—regardless of the continuing F1 75 Reside occasion at London’s O2 Area, the place all of the groups unveiled their 2025 liveries—and once more yesterday when it hit the monitor for the primary time, with Charles Leclerc taking the wheel earlier than Lewis Hamilton had his flip at Fiorano.
In keeping with technical director Loic Serra, the brand new Ferrari is an evolution of the already stable SF-24. Nevertheless, as we all know, engine improvement has been frozen since 2022.
Enrico Gualtieri, head of Ferrari’s energy unit division, defined how his group has labored to make small but significant enhancements in efficiency and reliability whereas additionally helping the aerodynamics division in enhancing effectivity.
“Engine improvement has been frozen since 2022, that means we can not change any {hardware} or introduce new elements throughout the energy unit,” Enrico Gualtieri informed in a current interview for the Italian web site Automoto. “That doesn’t imply we are able to’t optimize what we have already got. We’ve labored onerous and eventually managed to refine our methods to raised combine our PU into our operations, significantly throughout all facets of a race weekend, to maximise each efficiency benefit. After all, nothing groundbreaking—particularly in comparison with what we might obtain when improvement time was limitless. We have now merely regained the efficiency potential we misplaced final 12 months, which is able to make the grid much more aggressive.”
“For the primary time, we didn’t must depend on auxiliary elements however as a substitute centered on integrating the ability unit seamlessly with the brand new automobile. In actuality, we had already achieved a correct match by the tip of 2022. Our design selections had been primarily aimed toward giving the aerodynamics group full freedom by occupying as little area as attainable throughout the automobile’s structure. We’ve been working with this energy unit for ten years now—an extremely lengthy journey. It started in 2014, although issues didn’t go as we had hoped. Nonetheless, it was a useful studying expertise that offered new alternatives. A very powerful factor is that we’ve gained expertise, and ultimately, we made vital progress.”
This 12 months, Ferrari faces a twin problem: growing the SF-25 with the hope of preventing for the title till the ultimate race whereas additionally engaged on the 2026 automobile, which will likely be constructed beneath the brand new technical rules set to take impact on January 1 subsequent 12 months.
“We’re totally centered on launching the 2025 automobile and managing all the season. That mentioned, 2026 is getting nearer, so this 12 months will likely be vital and intensely demanding in that regard. One of the simplest ways to be ready is to work on it whereas protecting our present season’s goals in sight. Within the coming weeks, we are going to dive deeper into growing the ability unit for the subsequent regulatory cycle.”
Naturally, Enrico Gualtieri additionally addressed the arrival of Lewis Hamilton and his preliminary impressions of the Ferrari engine. Whereas he didn’t disclose any particular particulars, he confirmed that Ferrari sought suggestions from the seven-time world champion, evaluating his expertise with the Ferrari V6 to the Mercedes energy items he used for years.
“We had discussions with him, in fact. We’re extra concerned with his general really feel for our engine fairly than making direct comparisons. However sure, his enter has been extremely invaluable. Drivers are, in a means, our most superior sensor within the automobile—generally much more exact than bodily sensors. His suggestions has been fascinating and intensely useful in understanding how he perceives our engine. He has been very engaged within the discussions, and his involvement in adapting to the Ferrari energy unit has been drastically useful.”
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