While Ferrari struggles to come with its 2013 car, the Maranello outfit's head of engines, Luca Marmorini, is focussing on the year ahead, and what will be a "very difficult challenge" for his department.

"There is no one single aspect of the new project that is more critical than the next," he told the team's website. ""I’d say it’s difficult in all 360 degrees.

"For example," he continued, "the turbo is a new type which runs to 25,000 rpm and is definitely something absolutely new. Also the very complex electronics and management systems are a very big step forward, which means that engine management will be a very difficult challenge."

The existing regulations, which have changed little in recent years, mean that engine failures have been rare, Marmorini, believes that will change with the introduction of the new formula.

"We have to develop the power train in a short space of time and this means that reliability will be the factor that will decide the races in the early part of the season. In most cases people will locate their turbos in the central rear part of the engine and therefore near the electronics and the temperatures can reach a thousand degrees and that won’t be an easy matter to deal with. Managing temperatures will be one of the main areas we will have to work on.

"We already had a prototype running on the test bench towards the end of last year, while we are completing the one that will run in the actual car at the moment," he revealed. "We have a very challenging plan to be ready in March. We can’t afford any hiccough today and I am confident that we will be ready. We have been working for some time to have this car ready but it’s a challenging task. Only at the first race next year will we see if we have done a good job."

A new regulation that is exercising the minds of the F1 boffins is that the fuel flow of these new power units must not exceed 100 kilos per hour and there are concerns this could mark a return to drivers having to save fuel rather than race. "Ferrari feels this could be a danger," admitted Marmorini. "We like Formula One to consider efficiency, but we don’t like it to be a sport where you are cruising for 50% of the laps."

At present engine development is frozen but with the new formula there will need to be a 'thaw'.

"With a completely new power unit, some sort of development from the first to the second year has to be done," said the Italian. "The amount of modifications you can do will reduce each year, from a fair amount of modifications for the first year and then in the second and third years, the number of modifications will be reduced. By the third and fourth years we will come to a situation which is very similar to what we have right now."

Asked about horsepower, something that is in the Italian team's DNA, Marmorini said: "When we defined these regulations with the FIA the idea was to have very similar horsepower to what we have today. A current F1 engine has around 750 horsepower, and you have 80 horsepower more from the KERS. Next year, with an engine having somewhere between 600 and 650 horsepower and an additional 160 horsepower coming from the ERS, if you add the two it’s very similar to what you have today.

"Next year, whoever can handle the engine in a good way and be reliable will have good results. But it will be difficult to run the season without issues, considering we are talking about four to five thousand kilometres per unit which is almost double what we are doing right now."