Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto doesn't expect any problems despite fast-tracking a series of upgrades in recent races.
In an effort to stop Mercedes' winning streak, a number of new aero parts have been introduced both in Baku and Barcelona with an upgraded engine also brought to the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.
With these updates being raced a month early in the case of the power unit, naturally, some are wondering if Ferrari is taking a risk with reliability and/or the parts not delivering the expected boost in performance.
“Obviously when you are planning such a change in your schedule or planning you need to do it a few weeks ago. It’s not something we decided last week,” Binotto said to RaceFans.
“Having started the season in Melbourne we recognised that somehow we may have been late on our performance compared to our competitors.
“We tried simply to push on all the main items where we were already planning developments and we were simply looking for opportunities and anticipating some of the problems.
“We did it already with an aero package in Baku which was somehow introduced earlier and we did it here as well for the power unit.
"You simply achieve that by trying maybe sometimes to shortcut or to intensify the activity. I have to say that the people back at Maranello, we intensified our activities and we are working still very hard. That’s what we need to do at the moment.”
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Whether the aggressive approach will be enough to catch Mercedes is uncertain, with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton still leading practice on Friday.
In the case of the power unit, there is another quandary too, will fast-tracking updates mean possible engine penalties later in the year?
“The early introduction does not mean that we cannot still use P1 [power unit 1] in some races, that can be an option,” Binotto claimed.
“We are not hoping to have four engines per season per driver.”
