25/01/2014
NEWS STORY
While excited at the sport's new era, Ferrari's engine guru Luca Marmorini admits that he and his team face a monumental challenge.
"We are all excited," he admits as the wraps are taken off his team's 2014 contender, the F14 T. "This is work we started two years ago. It's been a major project involving not only engine people but electronic people, ERS people, all working together with the chassis people, because the installation of the power unit in the car is extremely complex.
"We are highly motivated," he confirms, "but concentration is a must because we are just at the start of our work.
"In a modern Formula One engine, reliability is mostly obtained on the bench. Our simulation techniques are always improving and with this power unit we had to upgrade our facility because it is not just about simulating the race but simulating the way of using the power unit to recover energy.
"A lot of work has been done on the engine simulator, but a lot of work has been done on the car simulator also because since the beginning we had to understand, with our drivers, how to use the power unit and how to get input from them that could influence the development of the engine.
"Testing is fundamental," he admits. "Unfortunately there are just a few before the start of the season. During the Bahrain test we must already start to prepare the engine for Melbourne, so the impact, in terms of parts, will be extremely limited, but it will be very important to understand the behaviour of the power unit in the car.
"According to the 2014 regulations, at the beginning of the season we will be stopped in performance development, so we will not be able to change parts unless we have reliability problems. So, we will try and work until the very last day to introduce performance parts for the power unit, but on the other side reliability is so important this year, the penalties for poor reliability are so high that reliability itself is a performance parameter.
"So in this period we are trying to free the production of our system, to improve the quality of the parts we are getting, to help our suppliers to develop and supply us with components that are, in terms of quality, perfect.
"For this, the support that we have from our technical partners is fundamental, both in terms of performance and reliability. I need to mention Shell because their contribution in the development of this power unit has been fundamental."
Check out the F14 T gallery, here.