Ferrari engine at Mercedes' level: 'Big step taken'

After driving a Mercedes engine throughout his Formula 1 career, Valtteri Bottas will drive a Ferrari engine for the first time in 2022. To The Race the Finn tells what differences he notices.

No more Mercedes engine

In 2013, Bottas made his Formula 1 debut at Williams. The talented driver drove for four years for the team from Grove, which had an engine from Mercedes. When Nico Rosberg left the main Mercedes team at the end of 2016, Bottas had the chance to make the step up. After nine years of having a Mercedes in the back of his car, Bottas will hear the sound of a Ferrari engine in his cockpit through his switch to Alfa Romeo in 2022.

''It feels like with the Ferrari power unit, more things are done manually from the driver versus at Mercedes [where] there were many more automatic modes, like attacking or defending,'' Bottas draws his first comparison between the electric power of the engines. Bottas doesn't mind that he has to do more himself, he even likes that he can manage it himself.

Ferrari's advantage

Ferrari was well behind in terms of engine development after 2019 compared to Mercedes and Honda. In 2022, however, the Italian team appears to have taken a huge step in that area. ''There is no difference honestly. So that means they made progress from last year.''

According to the ten-time race winner, the biggest plus of the Ferrari engine is its ''drivability.'' Bottas argues that he has many more options in corners to choose different gears and sees that as a big advantage over the Mercedes engine he drove with for nine years.