Ferrari's early engine upgrade won't result in grid penalties

Ferrari

Ferrari's early engine upgrade won't result in grid penalties

Mattia Binotto explains all.

Matthew Scott

Friday 10 May 2019 15:24

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto confident that the decision to introduce an upgraded engine earlier than planned in the season at the Spanish Grand Prix will not result in Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel suffering grid penalties further down the line.

Having upgraded their aerodynamic package last time out in Baku, both Vettel and Leclerc are fitted with new engines in Barcelona as Ferrari try to put a dent in Mercedes' record-breaking start to 2019.

Teams introducing new engine components before race seven generally equates to penalties for using more than the allotted number in the campaign.

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However, with Ferrari having opted to make the change, Binotto is confident that the old engines can still be used later in the campaign.

"The early introduction does not mean that we cannot still use P1 in some races, that can be an option," Binotto said. "But we are not hoping to have four engines per season per driver.

"Obviously when you are planning such a change in your schedule or planning you need to do it a few weeks ago. It's not something we decided last week.

"Having started the season in Melbourne we recognised that somehow we may have been late on our performance compared to our competitors.

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"We tried simply to push on all the main items where we were already planning developments and we were simply looking for opportunities and anticipating some of the problems.

"We did it already with an aero package in Baku which was somehow introduced earlier.

"We did it here as well for the power unit. You simply achieve that by trying maybe sometimes to shortcut or to intensify the activity. I have to say that the people back at Maranello, we intensified our activities and we are working still very hard. That's what we need to do at the moment."