Ferrari to recover "large part" of engine issue - Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo

Ferrari to recover "large part" of engine issue - Alfa Romeo

Scuderia and customer teams suffered with PU in 2020

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Tuesday 23 February 2021 17:03

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Ferrari is set to recover "a large part" of the power unit deficit that blighted last year, according to Alfa Romeo team principal Frêdêric Vasseur.

The under-powered Ferrari engine throughout 2020 led to the Scuderia suffering its worst season for 40 years, while customer teams Alfa Romeo and Haas were also badly affected, finishing eighth and ninth in the constructors' championship, scoring just 11 points between them.

After unveiling its new challenger for the forthcoming campaign, the C41, Vasseur is in doubt Ferrari is again on the right road after updating its power unit over the winter.

"The collaboration with Ferrari, I think, is going very well," said Vasseur.

"We had a strong meeting, a long meeting over the winter to cover the points of last year when perhaps we didn’t do the perfect job but we are on a good path.

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“I think, on their side, they will recover a large part of the issue that we had last year and collaboration is getting better and better.

"We won’t take any of their staff – maybe one or two elements but not much more, and I think it is not the key point of the collaboration.

“The key point of the collaboration is to be convinced that we can learn from each other and, in the scope of the regulations, we have to bear with this and do the best job that we can do.”

The new campaign will see cars that are much the same as last season, although downforce levels have been cut to halt the progressively fast lap times for the final year of the current regulations.

Vasseur has insisted the team has managed to make gains on the aerodynamic side regardless of the curbing to the downforce.

“Even if we had some restrictions and changes to the regulations, we still had some freedom to develop the car on the aero side," added Vasseur.

“We did it and now there will be, as always, some choices [to make] and it doesn’t matter if you develop the car that you have today, you have to do a better job than the others.

“We made some good improvements. The FIA decided to change the regulations to slow down the car and I think we came back at a decent level.”