An update to the cooling system means the Sauber F1 Team will be able to run the 2016-spec Ferrari engine on full power for the first time this season at the Hungaroring, according to Marcus Ericsson.
The team have brought a raft of updates to Hungary, but it is the update to the cooling that the Swede feels will benefit them more, particularly as in other races they have been forced to turn down the engine to ensure reliability.
Although he feels happier with the car, he still believes Sauber will find it difficult to extract themselves from the first segment of qualifying.
“The big thing is the cooling system,” said Ericsson to Motorsport.com. “You don’t feel [the difference] but the engine guys could see the engine was running in much healthier temperatures.
“[It was] maybe not so much today but for qualifying and the race, we can turn up the engine a lot more. Hopefully we can extract more performance from that, which is something which has been hurting us quite a lot this season.
“The engine has been running quite high and we have to go down on engine settings. We already have the old power unit so you don’t want to turn the unit down.
“The way I understand, we can turn it up maximum tomorrow for qualifying, something which we haven’t been able to do this year. Will it be enough for Q2? I don’t know. It might not be possible. I was feeling quite confident in the car today so we could maybe do it.”
