Wolf: “The big advantage that can make Ferrari 1-2 tenths faster in 2022”

Mercedes F1 star Toto Wolf has for the first time given a clear magnitude of the differences he expects to see at the start of the 2022 season, saying Scuderia could be 1-2 tenths quicker than Mercedes thanks to the huge advantage of the extra time in the wind tunnel to available in 2021 to develop the new Ferrari F1-75.

In recent years, due to the latter’s enormous operating costs, the FIA ​​has introduced specific time limits for each team in the wind tunnel. However, the time for each team is staggered from last to first in last season’s league table: the latter has the most time, while the champion has the least time.

Ferrari ended the 2020 championship in a poor sixth place with their worst performance in two decades. Compared to the Champion Mercedes, this 2021 event gave her much more wind tunnel time, which became even more critical as the teams redesigned the 2022 cars in white – based on the new regulations.

In addition, the Scuderia developed very early on – since its introduction in last year’s GP – the hybrid system of its power unit, which today is considered to be on par with Mercedes and Honda (Red Bull) – if not even more efficient, thanks to the hybrid system new technology of biofuels E10 developed by Shell as rumored.

Wolf did not hide publicly that he sees Ferrari as a visible threat to the quest for a ninth consecutive Mercedes title in 2022: “We definitely have to keep an eye on the possibility of having more time in the wind tunnel. “The advantage of sixth place in the championship over first is worth one or two tenths – and then of course we have to be able to hunt.”

The Austrian added: “We’re also part of those regulations and I think it’s good to encourage competition, so we’ll see where everyone stands. That will be seen at F1 winter testing, which starts tomorrow (23/2) in Barcelona, ​​​​​​Spain, and a little more at the first GP of 2022 – on March 20 in Bahrain.

As any radical change to the regulations hides the possibility of a major discovery by just one team capable of dominating it (as was the case with the Brawn GP double diffuser before the team was renamed Mercedes GP in 2009), Wolf added: “I count all teams. “Anyone can be at the top of the leaderboard early in the year because we saw something like that in 2009 with the dual diffuser.”