A nice third place for Red Bull Powertrains on engine performance in 2022

“Aerodynamics is for people who don’t know how to build an engine”, is Enzo Ferrari’s famous quote. He would turn in his grave if given the stats for 2022. F1Maximum.nl dug into the data, and it turns out: Ferrari turned out to be by far the least reliable team when it came to engines. Renault has also often been priced negatively this year. Red Bull Racing – in fact Honda and Mercedes have produced an engine you can rely on.

Based on information collected throughout the year, we look at which supplier offered the least reliable engine. So of course Ferrari immediately comes to mind, as Charles Leclerc has regularly caught the eye this year when large plumes of white smoke billowed from his red Ferrari. The figures confirm that it is Ferrari which has had the most breakdowns, although there are also more cars on the grid with a Ferrari engine.

For the sake of completeness, we also show a relative number. Why? Because the risk that a driver has engine problems due to wear, for example, is present with every supplier. The chance of an engine flop is never zero, and when you have six drivers driving, the chance of you being unlucky a few times is slightly greater. Thus, the relative number of dropouts per driver says a lot about reliability.

What would Enzo Ferrari think?

Ferrari, the man who firmly believed that the engine is the heart of the car, probably couldn’t have seen 2022 with dry eyes. No less than twelve times a driver equipped with a Ferrari engine has not seen the finish line due to defects in the material. Throughout the season, suggestions surfaced that Ferrari was using its engine too aggressively. As a result, they had a speed advantage, but also suffered from reliability issues.

We saw the first signs of this in Saudi Arabia, although Ferrari may have thought the fault in Valtteri Bottas’ cooling system was caused by the Middle Eastern climate. So in the second race he was already hit. Three races later in Miami another Alfa Romeo was hit, now it was the turn of Bottas’ Chinese teammate Zhou Guanyu.

Things went from bad to worse with part of the season in which six engines failed at Ferrari in four games. In Spain, Leclerc’s turbo failed, while Zhou had to record his second DNF in a row after losing power. A race later at Monaco, Kevin Magnussen lost water pressure to his Ferrari power unit, but the poison cup had to be emptied.

In Azerbaijan, Leclerc again experienced a dramatic drop out of P1, and the alarm bells really started ringing with Mattia Binotto. A championship battle would be tricky if you don’t reach the finish every three or four races. Incidentally, Magnussen’s engine also stopped in Azerbaijan – two races in a row, therefore – while Mick Schumacher did not finish the race in Canada.

Ferrari will recover

It’s almost inevitable that Ferrari started asking for less gear after that tough first half. From Austria, the retirements drop considerably, although Sainz still had to jump from a burning Ferrari there. After that, we only see a broken engine for Zhou in France, a fuel system failure for Bottas in Hungary, and a PU failure for Bottas in the Netherlands.

All Ferrari drivers are doing well for four races in a row. Additionally, Leclerc took a grid penalty in the United States for introducing new engine parts. The Italian team probably did it with a view to 2023. Next year they will no doubt be hoping to continue the championship battle, and you just need a fast and powerful engine for that.

Alonso’s alpine criticism justified

Fernando Alonso has said it all year: “I lost fifty points because we don’t have the reliability in order. That there are fifty is debatable. It is clear that Renault has not developed an engine with impeccable performance either. Compared to the number of riders riding the bike, Alonso and teammate Esteban Ocon had by far the most average failures.

The misfortune also began in Saudi Arabia at the French racing team. A water pump problem put an end to the Grand Prix at the time, much to the chagrin of the experienced Spaniard. After that, Alpine performed well for seven races in a row, a very creditable streak. However, this series also had to come to an end.

Ocon failed to finish in Britain due to a broken fuel pump, and a race later in Austria Alonso suffered electrical problems. With another water pressure issue for Alonso in Italy, and a double DNF for the Alpine duo in Singapore, the total comes to six. The most recent retirements in Singapore in particular hurt, as the gentlemen were on their way to a well-deserved double.

The return of Red Bull

Then it’s Red Bull’s turn, and we can talk about a real comeback. Max Verstappen’s disappointment after two retirements in the first three Grands Prix was very great. He himself said that he needed about two seasons to close the gap with title contender Leclerc. In Bahrain, the opening of the season, Red Bull Powertrains lost no less than three drivers.

Verstappen and teammate Sergio Pérez fell silent just before the end of the race after the fuel pressure dropped. The Austrian racing team has spoken of a vacuum in the fuel system, a problem that could be solved anyway. Pierre Gasly had to throw in the towel earlier in the race.

A race later it was the turn of Yuki Tsunoda, who ran into engine trouble in Saudi Arabia for the first and last time that year. A race later, it was Verstappen who came to a spectacular, smoke-filled stop at Albert Park after a fuel leak. It was straight away: since then, no engine problems have occurred, neither for the Red Bull pilots nor for the AlphaTauri pilots.

Mercedes takes the cake

The constructors’ championship will not go to Mercedes this year, but the prize for the most reliable engine will. The Germans had a perfect record, until the Italian Grand Prix. There, two Aston Martins, Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, both retired in a race with engine problems. when it rains, it pours, they say in England: Daniel Ricciardo has also given up. The Australian suffered an oil leak.

With that we also immediately had the failures of the engines coming from the Brixworth factory. On average, Mercedes-powered drivers have less than one breakdown over an entire year, with the two Mercedes drivers not having suffered engine problems once. Mercedes apparently lost momentum for this, as they are not really involved in the straight anymore.

Only four Grands Prix without engine problems

It is striking that throughout the year there has almost always been a team that has had engine problems. These were, as the table above suggests, mainly Ferrari. Four Grands Prix took place without technical failure, including the first at Imola. Ten races later, in Belgium, all the cars again remained intact in terms of engine.

In the last two Grands Prix, the teams showed their best side, because no one gave up in Japan and the United States. It may also have to do with the fact that a lot of new engines are installed around these races and the resulting grid penalties are taken for granted. This obviously benefits reliability.

The bottom line is that Ferrari built a powerful engine that struggled throughout the year. At Alpine, these healings were more sporadic, but the impact always seemed great when something went wrong. Red Bull Powertrains and Mercedes have done a good job in 2022. Mercedes numbers in particular are very impressive, especially when you consider that there are no less than eight cars with Mercedes power. You can’t ignore Red Bull either, especially because in terms of power they really belong at the pinnacle of the sport at this time.