Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne is confident the Italian F1 team will emerge as a “true competitor” in 2016, capable of challenging Mercedes on a regular basis.
Ferrari have already emerged as Mercedes’ closest rival in 2015, but ultimately remain some way off the Silver Arrows pace with just two wins compared to Mercedes’ ten.
However a completely re-designed car and improved engine will see that gap close to the point where Ferrari and Mercedes will challenge each other at every race weekend, according to Marchionne.
“[Next year] is a completely different environment, we’ve been working on the 2016 power unit and the car for a while,” he revealed to Sky Sports F1.
“In 2016 all bets are off. We’re entering the season with a completely re-designed engine and car; and I feel relatively comfortable that Ferrari will be back and a true competitor, as opposed to being a catch-up artist.”
Marchionne declared himself “delighted” with team principal Maurizio Arrivabene and the Ferrari team following their resurgence which he only expects to get better.
“I’m delighted with the work that Maurizio has done. Him, James Allison, the guys that have worked on the engine, they’re a bunch of people that have really worked their tail off over the last 12 months to remedy what I consider to be some real technical shortfalls,” he added.
“Those issues are mainly behind us. I think we’re dragging along today some technical limitations about power development of the current power unit, because they’re issues that cannot be fixed in the time that we have.”
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