Ferrari are set to rock up at the Belgian Grand Prix with an upgrades engine as they look to recover their deficit to Red Bull in the championship.
The Scuderia came into the season with one of the best engines on the grid, but the power unit Honda made for Red Bull has generally eclipsed it.
Previously known for their superior downforce, the Red Bull has been a demon in a straight line this season, and Ferrari are trying their best to change that.
This is not to say that they are far off; they are really not, but more power from the engine rarely hurts.
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Red Bull have won eight of the last 10 races since Charles Leclerc took victory in two of the opening three in Bahrain and Australia.
The Austrian team brought an upgrade to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix that saw them eclipse the advantage Ferrari appeared to have at the beginning of the year, but they have had some help from their rivals.
Ferrari have been in positions to score podiums and race wins multiple times since Melbourne, but they have only converted two of those – in Silverstone and Spielberg.
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Even during Sainz’s win in Britain, a strategic error cost Leclerc as he finished fourth, while Sainz was denied a second-placed finish a week later when his engine blew out, marring Leclerc’s win.
Further reliability issues have taken place in Spain and Baku, costing Leclerc victory, and the Monegasque was denied a chance of competing for the win when he picked up a grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The same fate awaited Sainz in France after his Austria blowout, so plenty of points have been lost through reliability-related problems this year.
This, in part, is due to the fact that Ferrari designed an engine to compete, so spent more of their allocated time on that than ensuring reliability as they endeavoured to close the gap to Mercedes and Red Bull.
Changes will still be permitted to the engines after Spa, when Ferrari are set to being their final performance upgrade, but due to the impending freeze, any further changes can only be used for reliability reasons.