Ferrari has revealed that Carlos Sainz Jr will be taking an engine penalty at the Turkish GP which will result in him starting from the back of the grid. Ferrari is upgrading Sainz with the new engine that gets a new hybrid system that develops around 10-15 bhp more which more or less nullifies the straight-line speed advantage of the Mercedes and Honda-powered cars. Charles Leclerc took a similar penalty in Russia after his power unit was changed and even though his race was ruined by the last-minute rain, he reported that he was able to follow Max Verstappen whose Red Bull had a Honda power unit. Leclerc even overtook him once.
"Like Charles Leclerc in Russia, Carlos Sainz will take a brand new powertrain with the new hybrid system to Turkey. He will therefore start from the back to move up the grid to try and score points," said Ferrari in a statement. Ferrari has been hobbled since the end of the 2019 season when technical directives crippled its class-leading engine which led to its 2020 car being compromised as its aerodynamic concept didn't account for an engine with lower power. In-season engine development was frozen and so aerodynamic development was limited thanks to COVID19 which further caused problems. Ferrari was hit harder than other teams also because Italy was ravaged by the first wave of the pandemic and Ferrari had to keep its factories shut in Maranello for longer than the other teams.
Sainz has been hugely impressive in the Ferrari this year and is out scoring Leclerc
In 2021, the ground effect aerodynamics rules were supposed to be introduced but the FIA decided to delay the changes slightly only which meant that Ferrari couldn't make sweeping changes to its car and while its power unit was so crippled that it retained only half of the performance it lost in 2019. But bit by bit, Ferrari has found a way to recover performance and become competitive again. It has scored two pole positions and its drivers, at least twice were in the running to win the race. Even in the Russian GP, Sainz was leading the race for a short while and then ended up P3 on the podium for the 3rd time this year.
Ferrari has been working on an ambitious new engine for 2022 as there is going to be an engine development freeze for 4 years. This new hybrid system is a part of this new upcoming change in 2022 and Ferrari is prototyping it on the SF21 and has seen good results. The cars are going to be so different next year that many at Ferrari wager that it may have a shot at developing a world championship-winning car. For this very reason, Mattia Binotto will not be attending the Turkish GP as he focuses on the development in the factory for 2022.
Ferrari is 17.5 points behind McLaren for P3 in constructors -- but most of this has been due to the McLaren 1-2 finish at Monza, Ferrari's home track which is particularly punishing on cars that don't have the most powerful engine. In Russia, when Leclerc updated his engine, he wasn't extracting the maximum from the engine due to reliability concerns and the boost was of around 8bhp, but this could change this weekend.
