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Ferrari may wait until Monza for promising engine upgrade

Ferrari is poised to hold fire until the Italian Grand Prix on an engine upgrade that sources suggest could be enough to lift it on a par with Mercedes.

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF16-H

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF16-H

Ferenc Ember

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H
Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF16-H leads team mate Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H

The Italian outfit is still chasing its first win of the year and believes there is plenty of potential to come from tweaks it has planned for its internal combustion engine.

The changes are understood to use up the remaining three engine development tokens the team has at its disposal, with the Maranello organisation having been the most aggressive out of all the manufacturers so far this season in upgrading its power unit.

But despite having the changes ready to run, and big optimism about the performance step, it is understood that there is a feeling the team may be better waiting to introduce it.

Holding fire until Monza would give Ferrari extra time on the dyno to ensure there are no reliability problems, and would make more sense in terms of engine usage up until now.

The current units being used by Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen have only been in their cars for four races – Austria, Britain, Hungary and Germany - so it would be a little premature to make a change now.

The previous specification of engines had run without problems for five races from Russia until Baku.

Having another race weekend in the bank with the older specification would also limit any potential for reliability dramas later in the campaign with the new power units, something which is more important for Vettel as he is already on his fourth unit following his Bahrain GP failure.

Don’t miss our Belgian GP video preview…

 

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