Will engine reliability scupper Alonso's title challenge

[John S]

I know it is early days but with 2 engines gone and a third already raced, on one of the hardest tracks, can Alonso avoid picking up penalties later on in the year?

If they use a fresh unit in Shanghai Ferrari will have used four engines, half the years allocation, Ferd himself is playing down the situation in this report from OneStopStrategy.com but things still look difficult.

Spaniard Alonso had his first V8 changed due to overheating after Bahrain qualifying, suffered no problems in Melbourne but then a sudden failure in Malaysia.

FIA rules state that each driver may use just eight engines throughout the entire 19-race calendar, with ten-place grid penalties applying once the allocation is exhausted.

It is expected that Ferrari will fit the fourth new engine to the 28-year-old's F10 in China next weekend, leaving him with just four more fresh units in the bag for the remaining fifteen races.

Alonso is quoted as commenting on the engine situation by the Spanish press. "One is broken, another (the one changed in Bahrain) I can use only in free practices, and the third one (Melbourne) I can use in more races.

"But I am not particularly worried, the team has told me that it (Malaysia) was an isolated failure, and we didn't have any problems in the pre-season," added Alonso

OneStopStrategy.com, Today

[Scott]

Hopefully!      

[cosworth151]

I have an address and phone number in Northampton they might want to try. 

[Jericoke]

Everyone has been bagging on the 'no refuel = no strategy' rule change.  (Which is fair)

I think this 8 engine rule has brought in a lot of strategy, and caught some teams completely flat footed.  I don't really like the idea of the drivers tippy toeing around to guard their engines, but it is likely to create more 'inverted grid' scenarios late in the season. 

[david1275]

Hopefully!      

So do I, then Massa will win for sure. 

[Jugirl]

Maybe Aonso has had bad luck so far with his engines but it will happen to everyone. I know he will come good in the end. He is superior to Massa , will get the team behind him soon and will drive his way to the WDC :D Well he better because i have put my money where my mouth is hehe

[FW14B]

It is a worrying situation for Ferrari, they appear to be running through engines quite quickly and I worry it will affect them later in the season.  Maybe they'll be able to drag the life out of them like Vettel did last year.  However, the engine seems unreliable all round as it fails in the Ferrari and also the Sauber. 

[stealthhaggis]

It is a massive worry for them, as wf said, it's not just in a Ferrari that the engines are blowing up. There must be a common fault which for their sake they'd better hope they can fix without having to redesigning part of their engines!

[Alianora La Canta]

The thing is that it works in he Toro Rosso and, since it's homologated, it's the same units that were pretty (though not perfectly) reliable last year. My personal theory is that Ferrari got their cooling figures wrong and then passed the (unwittingly) incorrect information to its customer teams. Toro Rosso, having learned from their sister team Red Bull that Ferraris tend to kick out an unusually large amount of heat, probably revised their figures to adjust for over-optimism. Sauber, having not used this exact unit before (they were last with Ferrari in 2005) failed to do so and are suffering from the providing team's mistake.

[lkjohnson1950]

I think the 8 engine rule is rubbish. You could probably save just as much money if you limited them to a certain number of blocks which could be rebuilt as often as you like. Alonso's engine in Malaysia probably failed because the tranny problems kept banging it off the rev-limiter. Strange how no one seems concerned about that problem. Don't transmissions have to last 4 races or some such nonsense?

Lonny

[Scott]

I think the 8 engine rule is rubbish. You could probably save just as much money if you limited them to a certain number of blocks which could be rebuilt as often as you like. Alonso's engine in Malaysia probably failed because the tranny problems kept banging it off the rev-limiter. Strange how no one seems concerned about that problem. Don't transmissions have to last 4 races or some such nonsense?

Lonny

Exactly - well said Lonny.

[Jericoke]

I think the 8 engine rule is rubbish. You could probably save just as much money if you limited them to a certain number of blocks which could be rebuilt as often as you like. Alonso's engine in Malaysia probably failed because the tranny problems kept banging it off the rev-limiter. Strange how no one seems concerned about that problem. Don't transmissions have to last 4 races or some such nonsense?

Lonny

Exactly - well said Lonny.

I would have agreed with you guys up until a week ago.

Now, my mind has changed:  in the absense of 'strategic fueling', we now have a situation of 'strategic engine use'.  It might not be quite as glamorous as 'passing in the pits', but it will create scenarios where fast teams have to use delicate engines, and slower teams can take advantage. 

It's going to create drama from here forward.

[judy]

The thing is that it works in he Toro Rosso and, since it's homologated, it's the same units that were pretty (though not perfectly) reliable last year. My personal theory is that Ferrari got their cooling figures wrong and then passed the (unwittingly) incorrect information to its customer teams. Toro Rosso, having learned from their sister team Red Bull that Ferraris tend to kick out an unusually large amount of heat, probably revised their figures to adjust for over-optimism. Sauber, having not used this exact unit before (they were last with Ferrari in 2005) failed to do so and are suffering from the providing team's mistake.

Since both Ferrari and Sauber are affected by engine failure in the recent races, is it possible that the engines used by both teams were from the same manufacturing batch and affected by similar defect. I am sure Ferrari have the traceability records to identify the actual problem. The problem is Alonso will be using the fourth engine this weekend. Even if Ferrari is able to identify and rectify the problem, Alonso will be walking on tight rope having to stretch the use of the remaining 5 engines until the end of the season.

I don't think the failure has anything to do with the engine design since the same engine work reasonably well last season.

[lkjohnson1950]

Alonso and Massa will use their Bahrain engines in China because it's a low load circuit and it's cooler.

Lonny

[Chris Borg]

http://totalf1.com/full_story/view/336932/Ferrari_experiments_with_Fduct_as_Alonso_

Yet another blown Engine.