Ferrari's bold choice for its 2022 F1 engine explained

ferrari has committed to the engine design that will define its formula one hopes for the next three seasons there's been plenty of debate over ferrari's f1 engines in recent years from its doubted legality in 2019 to the extent that it slumped in 2020 and the efforts to improve it again for this season and beyond the work for 2022 is the most intriguing because it will define ferrari's engine performance and by extension its championship aspirations for several years unsurprisingly exactly what ferrari's doing to make up its engine deficit has been the subject of much speculation and some of it's been wide of the mark we're now able to shed some light on what ferrari's pinning its hopes on and why it thinks it's so bold all you need to do is be poised to let us know what you think in the comments and maybe hit the thumbs up button if you like what you see ferrari has recently chosen the more innovative of two projects it was considering for its 2022 engine the new power unit which will essentially be frozen in spec until new engine rules come into force in 2025 is hugely important for ferrari the team has been severely compromised by technical directives introduced in 2020 in response to an fia investigation into its powerful and controversial 2019 engine after making some ground in 2021 ferrari has been conducting two parallel development programs for the 22 engine which represents the final chance to make significant changes the first option is a direct development of the current unit which is understood to have been showing better performance on the dyno until very recently when a breakthrough with the more innovative solution swung the balance of the decision the more ambitious engine development has been headed by wolf zimmerman leader of the advanced projects and innovative solutions program zimmerman previously worked at austrian firm avl which works with several f1 engine manufacturers and is tooling up red bull for its new powertrains company he began his career at amg where he created the m156 v8 engine which has been used in many amg road cars ferrari has looked very closely at the split turbo concept pioneered by mercedes whereby the compressor is mounted at the front of the engine and the turbine further back linked by a shaft running through the v of the engine but it has decided not to follow that philosophy the innovations are understood to include the intercooler solution and significant gains are believed to have been found in the energy recovery's electrical system but the real innovation may be in the combustion technology combining superfast ignition with ways of making the intake mixture more turbulent and therefore explosive and getting the flame to quickly spread to the edges of the combustion chamber are the keys to improving combustion and maximizing the 500 bar fuel pressure allowed under the current regulations so although the architecture will remain conventional in terms of the turbo's layout the intercooler and other changes are understood to allow for a significantly more compact package than the current unit with honda following mercedes lead in 2017 and alpine having unofficially confirmed that renault will switch to a split turbo for its 2022 engine that will leave only ferrari in the combined turbine compressor camp the engine is ferrari's main lingering weakness but that cannot be its only priority for next year as f1 is adopting all new car technical rules as well even as early as april ferrari has been saying its development work was between 90 to 95 focused on its 2022 car as it had almost fully switched over from this season's design there are tighter development restrictions than ever and teams also have to comply with a budget cap for the first time in f1 history which means ferraris had to slash its spending however ferrari has been allowed more development time than most of his rivals benefiting from the introduction of a handicap style system that allows team more wind tunnel and cfd work the lower they finish in the championship the previous year ferrari had a port 2020 and was only sixth in the constructors championship but it started this year in much stronger form after a big effort to rework the rear of the car and upgrade its underpowered engine at the start of 2021 team boss mattia benotto indicated that the early performance of the sf-21 would help determine how quickly ferrari redirected all its resource to the new 2022 car just two races in bernato claimed that ferrari had already switched from january and the team was already focused on next year but he did seem to contradict that at the same time by adding we will still have some development in 2021 so the reality is likely that the bulk of ferrari's work had been on 2022 for months but there were still some lingering items to finish with the 2021 car and racing director lauren meckes effectively confirmed that at the spanish grand prix ferrari is not alone in being keen to avoid spending too long still working on its 2021 design but each team's decision is at least partly dictated by his respective situation ferrari's target for 2021 is to finish third in the constructors championship his fight with mclaren has been ultra close through the first leg of the season and is set to run to the end of the year engine development time is going to be unaffected by that fight because teams cannot introduce engine upgrades in season so ferrari does at least have a clear run at that particular project but it doesn't intend to compromise its 2022 car design to achieve a short-term goal because it's acutely aware of the significance of the bigger picture but regardless of whether or not ferrari pulls off its ambition of finishing third in the championship this year it has made a significant stride forward in pace and closed from just under 1.5 off the pace from last year to just over 0.5 down this year back to back pole positions for charlo leclaire in monaco and azerbaijan showed the strengths of a car that excels in slow corners and has a compliant mechanical platform that handles bumps and curbs very well hadler club been able to take the start in monaco there's a very good chance he would have won the race in azerbaijan given ferrari opted to run in low downforce configuration and was always going to struggle for pace over a race stint a victory was never possible although sliding to fourth place was a disappointing result ferrari had performed well in race conditions at the spanish grand prix meaning that while it won't replicate its street circuit form at conventional circuits all the time it will be hoping to have the advantage from now on despite mclaren's strength and quicker corners ferrari's effectiveness in adapting to the modified aerodynamic rules at the rear of the car this year is also encouraging the innovative approach it took to mimicking mercedes swept back rear suspension designed through its token spend sacrificing the switch to the narrow nose adopted by other teams in the process indicates sound decisions being taken on a technical level these qualities bode well for next year especially with ferrari now being happy that the team structure is right both to tackle historic weaknesses and adapt to the cost-cut era so there's a reasonable expectation that ferrari can produce a good enough car in aerodynamic and mechanical terms next year leaving the power unit as the sole remaining major question mark let us know how much faith you have in ferrari's engine and car design capabilities for 2022 and whether you think it will be a title force in f1's new era if you enjoyed our video then please leave us with a thumbs up and if you're not subscribed maybe you can hit the big red button to change that and join us again for more videos in the future

Channel: THE RACE

Views: 929,047

Keywords: Super Formula, Super GT, Grand Central Entertainment, The Race, Ferrari, Porsche, Nissan, GT-R, Bathurst 12 Hour, Le Mans 24 Hour, Endurance Racing, Motorsport, Fast Cars, Racing Cars, F1, Formula 1, esports, WFG, WFG2, Formula E, FE, Moto GP, Mclaren, racing, the-race, the-race.com, the race

Id: h_HN7eL7swM

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/bengine]

It was a bold choice to title this video 'explained' without providing any actual explanation.

[u/Odd_Broccoli_8922]

The moment I saw the title, I thought this will be a waste of time.