Guenther Steiner believes Ferrari has made great progress with its power unit in 2017 after the first four days of testing with it at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week.
The team principal of the Haas F1 Team was delighted with the performance of the 062 power unit, with only a couple of electronics issues caused by software problems, and he feels that compared to 2016 where mechanical issues were more prevalent, it is great progress from Ferrari.
Haas are the only Ferrari customer team in 2017 to be running the same engine as the main Scuderia Ferrari outfit, with the Sauber F1 Team running the year-old 2016 engine instead, and Steiner insists the improvements are certainly noticeable.
“The engine and gearbox here, we had almost a flawless test with the same engine – we never changed engine,” said Steiner. “We had twice an electronics problem but it was a software problem, nothing big mechanical. They have done a fantastic job in my opinion.
“To come out here with a new engine, a complete new engine, and be this reliable, it is amazing. If you look at the other ones around, and they are no dummies, they have quite a few issues. So from last year to this year [Ferrari] stepped up a lot and it is very good.”
