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Ferrari is reportedly planning to bring the first major upgrade to its 2022 challenger in the fourth round of the season at Imola later this month. Despite remaining relatively unchanged since Barcelona's testing, the F1-75 has been extremely competitive across the Bahrain and Saudi Grand Prix weekends.
According to Italian journalist Franco Nugnes, the Imola upgrade was pre-planned ahead of the season and will only consist of “part of the upgrade”. The Scuderia is reportedly planning to “split” the upgrade between Imola and the United States GP next month to ensure both its drivers have adequate spare parts.
Meanwhile, heading into the Australian GP this weekend, Ferrari is reportedly unconcerned about a lack of upgrades. The team is confident of the F1-75 in its current spec, believing that the new revamped layout of the Melbourne track is well suited to its characteristics and strengths.
In both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the team ran higher rear wing levels on its car than rival Red Bull, banking on its now-dominant power unit’s superior acceleration to overcome the drag deficit. This allowed the Scuderia excellent traction out of slow-speed corners and increased grip during braking.
According to Nugnes, the team will reportedly run a similar configuration in Melbourne and is hoping to better “optimize” the F1-75’s setup to decrease its top speed deficit.
After the first two rounds of the season, Ferrari lead both the driver’s and constructor’s championships with a healthy margin behind them. With Red Bull planning to bring more upgrades to Australia, however, the Italian team will have a hard time maintaining that gap.
“Evenly matched” battle between Ferrari and Red Bull great for fans and F1: Adrian Newey
Legendary F1 car designer and Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey believes FOM, and fans are “lucky” to have an evenly matched championship battle between Ferrari and Red Bull. Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, he said:
“I think at the moment, the lucky thing for F1 is that we have got two teams, who over the first couple of races have had very similar performance. That is what is giving the good racing, obviously.”
Newey believes that without the two teams fighting for the championship up front, the season probably wouldn’t have been as exciting even as the new cars prove to be much easier to follow.
With Mercedes failing to fix their bouncing problems, Ferrari and Red Bull seem set for an intense battle throughout 2022. This comes some nine years since they last went head-to-head for the championship in 2013.
