Scuderia Ferrari is getting ready to tackle back-to-back races in North America, with Texas the first port of call. Lorenzo Sassi, Chief Designer Power Unit, explains the most important aspects of the next race.

“The Austin track has three interesting facets: the first is what’s known as the power effect, or the importance the output from the power unit has on lap time, which is very high at this track. The second is energy management, because the long straights mean we have to ensure good energy recovery in order to maintain performance on those straights. Last, but by no means least, is the fact the track features many sections that rise and fall, which makes managing oil pressure critical.

"We expect fuel consumption to be less critical than in Sochi, but it’s still a parameter we will be monitoring carefully, because only when we take to the track on Friday and Saturday will we get a true picture of the situation. As for our development tokens, we still have four left and plenty of ideas on how to spend them, both on increasing power for this season and also looking ahead to 2016.”.Gutierrez: “the most interesting bits from various circuits”

“I have a special relationship with Austin, because up until this year it was considered the home race for many Mexicans, who always came to watch in large numbers.” That’s Scuderia Ferrari’s third driver Esteban Gutierrez’s initial thought on the first of the two North American races.

“The track is very interesting, because it’s been designed bringing together the best corners from various other tracks A very steep hill leads up to the first corner, which is followed by a sequence of corners that are reminiscent of Becketts at Silverstone, but a bit longer.

"Then, for example, the long sequence of turns, 16, 17 and 18 are like the long corner at the Istanbul circuit in Turkey. However, my favourite part is the first sector, because it also has some very slow corners and that makes finding the best set-up for the car more complicated. The heaviest braking point is the one at Turn 12 and the aerodynamic downforce level is medium to high. That’s actually quite a common scenario at various races in the championship and we will try to manage the situation as well as possible, as always”.

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