Upcoming Ferrari PU upgrades a "significant step" - Binotto

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has confirmed the team will make a "significant step" with power unit upgrades later this season.

F1 power unit suppliers are limited to one upgrade of each component per year but whilst others introduced these upgrades at the start of the season, Ferrari continues to run a number of 2020 specification components.

It remains unclear where Ferrari will introduce its new power unit as, with both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc on their third power unit already, both would likely be hit with grid penalties for taking the upgraded unit.

“We will bring a power unit development," said Binotto. "To clarify the regulations for 2021, you may have a brand new power unit in 2021.

"It means you can bring an update in all components of the power unit – the ICE, turbo, MGU-H, batteries, MGU-K etc.

“What we made at the start of the season, we didn’t complete the entire power unit development so there are still components which are the ones of last year. We will bring an evolution of those ones.

"That will be for us, a significant step for the end of the season. But more important for us, it will be experience in view of 2022.”

Heading into the summer shutdown, Ferrari is level with McLaren on points but sits in third in the constructors' championship by virtue of two second-place finishes.

“The objective is to improve in all the areas,” he said. “If we are capable of doing that, continuously improving, I think the outcome will be third.

“Being third is certainly a positive objective. We are third at the moment, equal points but we are third. The team is doing well and we are improving. I think we can achieve it, that’s no question. But it has to be a consequence of us improving in all areas.”

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