The announced ban of the most powerful engine modes in qualifying “can only be positive” for a Scuderia Ferrari lacking top speed, said Charles Leclerc.
It appeared this Thursday before the Spanish GP that the FIA was ready to put an end to the practice of qualifying engine modes from the Belgian GP at the end of August. The idea is to prevent teams from using pre-programmed settings that significantly increase the performance of the power units over a short period during qualifying and, a priori, to only allow a single engine mode for the Saturday afternoon session and race.
All this will have to be clarified by a technical directive sent to the teams before Spa. However, it appears that the structures that risk losing the most are those powered by Mercedes. On the contrary, Ferrari has struggled with its hybrid turbo block since the start of the season, in the wake of a secret agreement with the FIA following the investigation into the suspicious 2019 engine, and should not really be impacted by this regulatory change.
When asked what such a ban would mean for Ferrari, Charles Leclerc claimed that the stable had no particular mode of qualifying and that such news could only be good for the Scuderia.
“To be honest, I don’t think it will affect us that much, so I think it can only be positive for us. How beneficial it will be remains to be seen. But for us, I can say that we don’t ‘There is nothing different between qualifying and the race. So as far as we’re concerned, that won’t change anything. “
Leclerc in any case rather supported the decision, by launching that it was “probably” taken “for a good reason”.
His teammate Sebastian Vettel echoed his words, saying: “Let’s wait and see what happens. It always depends on what you’re capable of doing, I guess.”
“If you’ve developed something on your engine that probably allows you to go some distance with more power, more strain on the engine, then that’s probably not the best news. But where we are now. , as Charles said, it doesn’t affect us. “
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