Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari suspected of car gains despite F1 freeze rule

18 January 2023 , 18:37

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Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari are all said to have made performance gains on their engines in recent months (Image: Getty Images)

Alpine are reportedly "suspicious" of their fellow Formula 1 power unit constructors and the engine improvements they appear to have made in recent times.

Of the 10 teams on the grid, only four of them currently manufacture power units. Those are the 'big three' of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari – all of whom supply engines to other teams – and Renault, who supply their own Alpine-branded team and have no other customers on the grid.

Under current F1 rules, an engine 'freeze' is currently in effect. It means that teams are not allowed to make any performance improvements to their power units until 2026, and can only make changes to improve reliability.

However, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, there are suspicions from Alpine that their rivals might be pushing the rules. That is because all three of their rival constructors, in working on improving reliability, are said to have added extra horsepower to their engines in recent months.

Ferrari appear to be the big winners on that front – in the process of fixing their reliability woes from last season, they are understood to have found an extra 30bhp of performance. Mercedes and Red Bull are also said to have found double-figure increases.

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Renault appears to be the only engine manufacturer which hasn't increased the horsepower of its engines over the winter. In a recent interview with The Race, the team's engine chief Bruno Famin questioned the vagueness of the rules and wants the FIA to be "stronger" when considering change requests in future.

Alpine's Bruno Famin feels the current engine freeze rules are unclear (AFP via Getty Images)

"What is a pure, genuine reliability issue?" he questioned. "Then, behind the reliability issue you often have a potential performance gain, of course. The limit is not exactly always super clear.

"If you have a water pump issue, as we had in '22, it's quite clear it's a pure reliability issue, there is nothing to gain in having a better or different water pump. If need to change the material of the piston rings, OK, you will be able to have something stronger to have more performance, then where is the limit? It's not obvious.

"The process in 2022 with the FIA and the other PU manufacturers has been quite good, it has been transparent at least in that everybody was aware of the request and this is very good. It has been well managed by the FIA.

"It has been quite tolerant in '22 and I think it was quite normal because everybody was affected by a reliability issue. We had 30, 40, 50, 70 requests from the different manufacturers. Then everybody was affected by this kind of problem. I am expecting the FIA to be a bit stronger in the future, but I have no new information."

Daniel Moxon