Ferrari customers to get engine boost

Spyker and Toro Rosso have been promised a step forward in engine performance next year as Ferrari express their confidence in making progress

This season has been the first since 2001 when Ferrari have supplied two customer teams, and their head of track engineering for engines, Mattia Binotto, thinks the company have faced a learning phase on that front.

But with him now confident they are reaching a good performance level, he is eyeing even more steps forward in 2008.

"The freezing of engine development has helped a lot in allowing us to provide this service, because again you are able to schedule and manage the full activity quite some time in advance," explained Binotto. "We have done a great job this year and part of that is down to the engine freeze.

"On the other side I would say that our collaboration with both Toro Rosso and Spyker has worked very well. Also in terms of performance we made a significant step forward through the season, as can be seen especially by Toro Rosso's performance in the last couple of races.

"At the start of the season, life was quite difficult on the customer front because we had a very short time to prepare and work out the installation of the engine in the chassis.

"But with both these teams, we caught up and made some good steps forward. Now we are looking to move forward again with both teams next year.

"We have enjoyed a good relationship and a good collaboration. Our engine guys in Maranello are very happy to have had four Ferrari engines in the top six at the last race in China.

"Ferrari is supplying these two other teams mainly for technical reasons, as it is a benefit to be able to run each race with six engines. The amount of feedback is important in terms of reliability and engine usage."