Why Ferrari has its work cut out for 2016

Monza. Formula 1's 'cathedral of speed'. A place where a good engine counts for much, if not quite all, of your car's performance.

It's also the home of the Italian Grand Prix - Ferrari's home race. Ferrari sees itself as synonymous with F1 (owing to a continuous competitive history stretching all the way back to the beginning of the world championship in 1950) and so this race is, for many reasons, a big deal for the Prancing Horse.

It's the place for the Scuderia to show what it is made of.

That's probably why many were expecting Ferrari to introduce a so-called 'super engine' for the Italian Grand Prix. After all, there is no better place to throw some extra horses at the car in pursuit of the sort of glory demanded by the loyal Tifosi.

Ferrari did indeed bring a new specification of F1 engine to Monza. AUTOSPORT understands it spent three of its remaining engine tokens (the system that strategically limits in-season development) in order to upgrade the internal combustion component of the power unit.

Cowell is one of the masterminds behind Mercedes' latest engine upgrade © XPB

Arrivabene was at pains to point out after free practice on Friday that this was not any kind of 'super engine'. When you consider Sebastian Vettel trailed Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg by a massive seven tenths of a second on the timesheet, it's not difficult to see why.

Everyone knows Mercedes has built the best F1 engine under the current V6 hybrid regulations, helping its works team to dominate over the past 18 months or so, but the prevailing feeling of 2015 is that Ferrari has been getting closer, having restructured its engine department during a woeful '14 season and made substantial improvements to the power unit this term.

Perhaps that's why Monza also presented the perfect opportunity for Mercedes to flex its muscles by introducing a new engine of its own for this race. After all, there could be no better arena to put the rival that has been snapping at your heels this year firmly back in its place.

Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell joked that was a "nasty thought" as he explained what he called the "brave" decision to introduce his organisation's latest upgrade for this race - spending all of its remaining seven tokens slightly earlier than originally planned.

But such has been the strength of Mercedes' engine performance through this season, starting with the '25 token' Melbourne engine that was revised slightly (for reliability reasons) in Canada, that Cowell felt able - if not exactly confident - to go for it.

"We pushed those first engines and were pleased with the way we managed to get six races [out of them]," says Cowell. "Then it was into the second power unit with the reliability update for Canada, thinking we'll do six races and that covers us all the way to the end of this weekend.

"Then, with the development activity going on in the factory, you get tempted by Spa and Monza in terms of the performance reward of the full-throttle time. So we took the decision this week that we would introduce our development engine [for Monza].

"All of that work was probably for three months focused on Melbourne 2016."

The implication is an ominous statement of intent. Mercedes seems so confident with its development of what remains relatively immature hybrid engine technology that it is already 'testing' next year's with eight races of the 2015 season to run.

"What do we do? Do we run another race on the existing engine to stretch that to six races? Or do we introduce something new and be brave?" asks Cowell rhetorically. "We have all got our CPUs running flat out looking for any issues in the factory to check that what we are doing isn't foolhardy.

Monza's long straights carry ominous signs for Ferrari's 2016 hopes © LAT

"We have got eight races to go and two power units, so just an average of four for each power unit. We will use some of the existing ones on Fridays, to minimise the mileage.

"It's a good point to introduce and do that development work and then build on that through the winter."

Cowell explained that Mercedes has spent "three tokens on the combustion aspect of the engine", which has been introduced in conjunction with a new fuel from Petronas at Monza.

"The fuel enabling us to make changes around the internal combustion engine is where the majority [of the upgrade] is," adds Cowell. "The combustion aspect linked with the fuel is the key, but there are some other enablers close to that to pull the whole package together."

The suggestion is Mercedes will now focus on taking new steps with the ancillaries that make up the complicated Energy Recovery System, which is a constant search for greater efficiency.

The more energy that can be recovered from the waste materials of combustion (through the MGU-H unit connected to the turbo) to supplement the kinetic energy recovered under braking through the MGU-K that helps give the power unit its extra 150-odd bhp boost on the straights through a battery, the better off you're going to be.

"The engine and the ERS are so interlinked, we are constantly debating [where to develop next]," explains Cowell. "Should we increase the crank power, or should we increase the amount of power that we take out of the MGU-H and put into the battery, or to power the MGU-K, because of the flexibility of different energy flows that you've got there?

"All the work around combustion efficiency is very potent, because you've got 1240KW potential in the fuel with it flowing at 100kg/h, so the day we get to 100 per cent conversion efficiency, we will have 1240KW as well as the K. That's our aspiration before we retire.

"There are losses, though. There is still some energy in the exhaust as it goes through the turbine, so we are chasing turbine efficiency; we are chasing H efficiency, we are chasing cable efficiency - the orange cables, the connectors, the cable sizes - that sort of technology.

"We are chasing the high-powered switching efficiency and then the same on the K. And when we store the energy in the battery we are making sure we are not losing a lot of energy there. So all of that really matters, and a lot of the ERS aspect provides tactical opportunity.

"The straight thermal efficiency in the ICE [combustion engine] - that's good old fashioned crank grunt. The combustion chamber and the journey of the air in, and the fuel injection, and the chemistry, and the exhaust system, and its interaction with the turbine - there are many components, many parameters that you are chasing to improve.

"All of those have improved together. One of the bits on its own wouldn't deliver anything, but that bit with the rest has delivered something. It's all beautifully interlinked - the fuel and the combustion process and the task of liberating useful power from this chemical energy."

Analysing the pace of the two Mercedes compared to the rest on Friday at Monza, you would have to agree Mercedes has done a pretty handy job of "liberating" more power from its engine.

PURE PACE RANKING

1. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m24.279s
2. Ferrari (Vettel) 1m25.038s
3. Force India (Perez) 1m25.278s
4. Lotus (Grosjean) 1m25.497s
5. Williams (Bottas) 1m25.647s
6. Sauber (Nasr) 1m26.114s
7. Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m26.222s
8. Toro Rosso (Verstappen) 1m26.454s
9. McLaren (Alonso) 1m26.966s
10. Manor (Merhi) 1m28.439s

Given that 0.759s gap it's clear to see why Arrivabene does not expect his team to challenge for a home victory this weekend. An analysis of the long run pace (usually Ferrari's stronger suit) doesn't really make for prettier reading.

Hamilton's average laptime over a five-lap stint on the soft tyre was 1m27.626s. Team-mate Rosberg did an eight-lap race-run on the same tyre and averaged 1m27.856s.

Force India mixed it with the Ferraris during free practice on Friday © XPB

Ferrari couldn't break through the 1m28s barrier during its longer running. However, Vettel aborted his soft-tyre run after two laps, so he doesn't give us an accurate read, while Raikkonen (who was unhappy with the set-up and the way he drove the SF15-T) averaged 1m28.642s over an 18-lap stint.

But it's probably fair to say that even had the second session run more smoothly for Ferrari, it simply isn't fast enough to get near Mercedes this weekend.

The battle could be tighter in the midfield, where the customer Mercedes teams (which will have to wait to get their hands on this latest specification of engine) look likely to dominate.

The recently improved Force Indias split the two Ferraris in the hands of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg at the top end of the timesheet, but it's Williams that led the way over the longer runs.

Both Hulkenberg and Perez averaged low 1m29s on the soft tyre, putting them slightly behind Valtteri Bottas (high 1m28s), but well clear of Pastor Maldonado's Lotus, which averaged 1m30.250s on his long run.

There is even less hope for the Renault-powered teams and McLaren-Honda, whose drivers will all take tactical grid penalties for running fresh engines, knowing their chances of a good result on this track are slim at best.

Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull was only 0.2s per lap faster than Felipe Nasr's Sauber over longer runs on Friday, while Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso trailed the Sauber fractionally.

Monza will demonstrate to all yet again just how dominant Mercedes is in the Formula 1 power stakes right now. But its latest move also highlights how far ahead it is in the development game too - stretching a moving target yet further away from its rivals.

Ferrari, Renault and Honda had a long road ahead of them before this weekend. It seems that road has just got a fair bit longer.