Ferrari now has the best engine in Formula 1, Steiner believes

Ferrari saw its engine performance become a major hit in 2020, leaving its work ethic and customer outfits, Haas and Alfa Romeo, behind it compared to its rivals.

Ferrari made decent progress with its engine last year and had a late-season boost thanks to an updated hybrid system designed for 2022, which gives it confidence in the new campaign.

Qualifying in Bahrain proved Ferrari’s step forward with the power unit as Charles Leclerc took the pole, while team-mate Carlos Sainz secured the third in the grid. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas finished sixth ahead of Haas driver Kevin Magnussen.

It has been suggested that Ferrari’s engine power advantage will be as much as two tenths of a second per lap over the rest of the field.

The step forward prompted Haas boss Steiner to claim after qualifying that Ferrari now has the best engine in F1.

“I think the Ferrari engine is now the best engine,” Steiner said.

“I mean honestly, and that gives them a lot of credit because they were in the same position as us. They had to take a lot of people over it.

“And they just came back, did their homework and came back with something very good.”

Bottas would line up in the third row for his first race with the Alfa Romeo, and felt that there would be no “greater differences between any of the engine manufacturers”.

“I think Ferrari has done a good job, they have definitely taken a step forward from last year,” Bottas said. “So this is an improvement, without a doubt.”

Max Verstappen qualified second on the grid for Red Bull behind the two Ferraris, missing the pole position by 0.123 seconds. The reigning world champion said that while Ferrari’s performance “not only comes down to the engine”, the team “is clearly going well on the track”.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly managed to reach Q3, but noted “Ferrari-powered cars are really fast”, which means his team “has a bit of work to do if we want to get to the top of the midfield “.

Q1 eliminated four Mercedes-powered cars along with Yuki Tsunoda, whose AlphaTauri is powered by a Red Bull-Badged Honda power unit.

McLaren lost Daniel Ricciardo in the first round of qualifying, leaving the Australian in 18th place, while Lando Norris was eliminated in Q2 after finishing 13th.

When asked about engine parity, McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl felt the team needed to focus on comparisons with the works Mercedes Outfit runs on the same power units.

“We have to acknowledge regardless of these issues that we had that we simply did not have the performance,” Seidl said.

“The most important thing is for us to now simply recognize that, and compare ourselves to the Mercedes Works team. We miss about a second on Mercedes. That is the best reference for us that we can have, and that is what we are concentrating on. concentrate. team.

“We know that we will most likely simply miss the grip, which is possibly a result of the lack of mechanical grip plus aerodynamic grip, and it is simply important now to put all our energy into making sure we find performance as quickly as possible.”

Additional reporting by Adam Cooper and Ronald Vording.