Ferrari technical director James Allison credits the team's power unit department for a step forward in competitiveness at the Italian Grand Prix.
Following an impressive run in qualifying yesterday in front of Ferrari's home crowd and top brass, both Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel will be seeking a quick launch off this afternoon's starting grid to beat Lewis Hamilton into Monza's first chicane.
Ferrari will no doubt have its work cut out for itself to challenge Mercedes, but prospects have been boosted by the Scuderia's latest power unit upgrade, the effects of which were seen in qualifying yesterday with Hamilton enjoying a smaller margin than expected over the red cars.
While Mercedes relied on using the full allocation of development tokens left at its disposal (a total of seven), Ferrari exploited only three tokens to improve its own power unit, producing what Allison considers as a useful step forward.
"Our performance is a great credit to all the people in our power unit department," Allison commented.
"Mattia Binotto, who leads them, and chief designer Lorenzo Sassi have done a great job bringing this engine here. It may be a little less heralded than the work that Mercedes brought here but it's a useful step forward, and fundamental to what we achieved in qualifying."
Ferrari's drivers qualified within a few hundreds of a second of each other with Raikkonen just edging out team-mate Vettel.
"Both of them lapped really well, " said Allison, insisting of the drivers' consistency. "All the rounds were steady progressions through all the sessions. We're really happy as this is our best qualifying result of the year, and it's really nice to have our drivers so close together like that."
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