In a fundamental change of regulations, the 2022 Formula One cars have 18 in wheels and radically revised approach to aero that puts much more emphasis on ground effect. But within these new look machines are power units designed to the regulations established in 2014. Moreover, those hybridised 1.6 litre V6 turbo power units are now frozen in specification until new rules are introduced, provisionally for the 2026 season.
Ferrari started the first race of the new ‘frozen’ era with a convincing one-two
At the time of writing, only the first two races of the 2022 had been run. The evidence of those events, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, was that Ferrari had overcome the power unit deficit to Mercedes it had suffered since its 2019 challenger was, at the end of that season, deemed to have strayed too far into a grey area. The manner of its one-two result at this year’s Bahrain opener suggested it has actually powered ahead of both Mercedes cars, but it would be foolish to try to segregate power unit performance from the whole car package on the basis of one race.
Red Bull won in Saudi Arabia, and as the season progresses it is likely that we will see Mercedes in the mix too, maybe also Alpine on occasion. But any development of the power unit is no longer permitted; those have now been homologated for 2022 onwards unless any modification is specifically approved for reason of reliability, cost, safety or some other non-differentiating factor.
Of course, reliability is potentially a differentiating a factor, in so far as each major element of the power unit has to run a number of races to avoid penalty. The current allocation for the 23-race season is the use of no more than three IC engines, turbo-chargers, MGU-Hs and MGU-Ks, two energy stores and control electronics, and eight exhaust systems.
It is also worth noting that homologation applies to all of those elements as well as to the specification of the fuel and oil. Where last season the fuel had to have a 5.75% bio element, this season it has to be E10, with the 10% ethanol content being a second-generation biofuel made in a sustainable way. At a stroke, the switch to E10 cost about 20 bhp but ongoing development by all four of the current power unit providers before the March 1, 2022 freeze regained that loss.
The differing characteristics of E10 was blamed for late race fuel pick-up problems that cost Red Bull third and fourth in Bahrain, but such issues are straightforward to address. Red Bull had suffered from a lack of relevant pre-season preparation owing to the team attending to other matters during 2022 testing, which amounted to only 3 days at Barcelona followed by 3 days pre-race at Bahrain.
As well as having track testing severely limited by regulation, the 10 current Formula One teams are nowadays operating under a cost cap. That cap doesn’t yet extend to the power unit. However, power unit test bench work hours are now severely restricted, while the supply of power units to customer teams is limited to a cost of €15 million each.
The provision of customer engines is not only restricted to the four homologated power units; by regulation those units must be operated in exactly the same way as the factory engine, including having the same control software. Where a customer team has a different fuel or oil supplier its product must be homologated.
While Alpine (Renault) currently has no customer, Ferrari continues to supply Alfa Romeo and Haas, with Mercedes again furnishing Aston Martin, Williams and McLaren. Red Bull no longer has official Honda support for its power unit, which is also used by sister team Alpha Tauri.
However, although Honda’s UK Formula One operation has now been integrated with the new Red Bull Powertrains organisation that is developing a power unit for 2026, Honda continues to build its existing power unit in Japan for Red Bull and Alpha Tauri, and to offer trackside support.
In view of the impending transition to Red Bull Powertrains, Honda brought its planned 2022 power unit into service early. For the new generation of cars, all the power units have been repackaged, and Honda rushed in a brand new, more compact IC engine for the start of the 2021 season. The bore pitch had been reduced, and overall it was even smaller than the ‘size zero’ unit with which it had started its current-era Formula One involvement in 2015.
The process of Honda moving early to 2022 specification was completed with a new energy store introduced for the second half of the 2021 season. Yasuaki Asaki, head of Formula One power unit development at Honda, then said, “This has been developed in a project that has taken several years, with an aim to combine improvements in energy efficiency with significant reductions in weight. It is fitted with a lighter, low-resistance, highly efficient and ultra-high power battery cell.”
Honda retains intellectual property of its current, now frozen power unit, which from 2023 will be operated solely by Red Bull Powertrains.
Ferrari’s 2022 contender looked formidable at the opening race of the season
Meanwhile, the Ferrari Tipo 066/7 power unit for 2022 is all new, aside from its energy recovery and energy storage systems, which were introduced in September 2021 at the Russian Grand Prix. Interestingly, the current Ferrari power unit is the only one left in Formula One to shun the split compressor and turbine layout pioneered in 2014 by Mercedes.
It is understood that for this year Ferrari had the choice between a promising evolution of its 2021 power unit and a more ambitious alternative. Enrico Gualtieri, head of Ferrari’s Formula One Power Unit department, told Italian magazine Autosprint at the launch of the Tipo 066/7 that it is “extreme and unconventional”.
He added, “It was an intense and exciting challenge… all the components [of the IC engine and the turbocharger] were revised – some further optimised, others decidedly innovated. The hybrid system is a consolidation of the evolution we brought to the track at the end of last season; the electronics have also changed a lot to adapt to the needs of a completely revised [2022] car.”
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, Gualtieri’s predecessor as head of the Power Unit department at Maranello, remarked at the launch that the 066/7 was new, “especially in design of the combustion itself”. Former AMG V8 designer then AVL engineer Wolf Zimmermann, who was previously Ferrari’s liaison at that company and nowadays heads Ferrari’s advanced projects programme, has been widely credited with the new approach to combustion.
Ferrari has not disclosed what is new about its 2022 combustion system, which is rumoured to exploit all of the 500 bar fuel pressure permitted by the regulations in conjunction with more turbulence in the charge air and faster flame propagation. Internally, the engine is dubbed ‘Superfast’. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is clearly a potent recipe, one that rivals will not have scope to exploit before the current regulations expire at the end of 2025 – even if they obtain it.