At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc, the current leader of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship, and his boss Mattia Binotto do not believe that Ferrari has an advantage over the rest of the F1 grid in terms of engine performance at the start of the year.

Since the start of the 2022 season, all observers have been able to see the very good performance of the Ferrari engine, whether it be with the two Scuderia Ferrari cars or with those of the client teams (Haas and Alfa Romeo). Some, including Haas team boss Guenther Steiner, even believe that the Ferrari V6 engine is the best engine on the grid this year in Formula 1.

It is true that Ferrari has made significant improvements to its power unit since the end of last year, most notably by introducing an update to the entire hybrid part of its V6 before continuing with the update to the internal combustion engine this winter. Although Charles Leclerc acknowledges that Ferrari has improved its power unit compared to last year, the Monegasque refuses to say that the Italian team now has an advantage over the rest of the grid.

“Well, first of all, I can feel the difference with the car, the progress that has been made from last year to this year and that’s good. It’s the result of all the work that the guys at Maranello have done, and it’s also the reason why we are competitive this year, so it’s great to see that.” said Charles Leclerc.

“On the other hand, I don’t think we have an advantage, I think we are in the same place as Red Bull at the moment, because they seem to be very strong in terms of power unit as well. So we have to keep pushing, but yes, it’s definitely a big step forward compared to last year.”

Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto completely agrees with Leclerc’s comments and says there is very little difference in terms of performance between the engines: “Last year we had a certain disadvantage that we tried to make up for and I think if we look at the data we are definitely more in line [in 2022].”

“On the first two races and on the analysis we have been able to do so far, it seems that between the power units of the different manufacturers the difference is very small. We have reached a certain convergence, whereas we had a disadvantage last year, this is no longer the case.

After the first two rounds of the 2022 season, Ferrari leads the constructors’ championship by 40 points over the Mercedes team.