The challenges of Austin

Maranello, 20 October – Scuderia Ferrari is getting ready to tackle back-to-back races in North America, with Texas the first port of call. Lorenzo Sassi, Chief Designer Power Unit, explains the most important aspects of the next race to ferrari.com. “The Austin track has three interesting facets: the first is what’s known as the power effect, or the importance the output from the power unit has on lap time, which is very high at this track. The second is energy management, because the long straights mean we have to ensure good energy recovery in order to maintain performance on those straights. Last, but by no means least, is the fact the track features many sections that rise and fall, which makes managing oil pressure critical. We expect fuel consumption to be less critical than in Sochi, but it’s still a parameter we will be monitoring carefully, because only when we take to the track on Friday and Saturday will we get a true picture of the situation. As for our development tokens, we still have four left and plenty of ideas on how to spend them, both on increasing power for this season and also looking ahead to 2016.”