Ferrari gear up to avert looming crisis
1 June, 2010
Fernando Alonso showing strain in Turkey
Jun.01 (YallaF1.com & GMM) The Turkish slapping hurt Ferrari but, according to the Italian team, there is no intention of turning the other cheek.
Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso finished 7th and 8th respectively in Turkey
The team issued a press release stating: “The ten points picked up in Turkey, mainly down to a very poor qualifying, which highlighted a significant lack of performance compared to McLaren and Red Bull, is far too sparse a haul for a team that wants to be fighting for the title.”
Team Principal Stefano Domenicali speaking at the team’s usual Monday debrief said, “We have to react immediately and show what we can do. The ability to develop the car has always been a strong point for Ferrari and there is no reason why that should not be the case now: the people are the same, as are our work methods. At the end of the (Turkey) race.
Fernando Alonso faces the media in Turkey after qualifying
Pressure in Italian media circuits is also mounting, to which Domenicali alluded to when he said, “I spoke to the journalists about the need to be innovative and creative and I reprised this message with our engineers this morning. We are a strong and united group and there is a strong desire to show what we are made of.”
The team is already working on preparing for the Canadian round. The cars and equipment from Istanbul Park are now on ship heading for the port of Trieste and will arrive in Maranello on Wednesday: only two days later, everything will have to be ready for air-freighting to Montreal.
Felipe Massa on the grid for the start of Ferrari's 800th Grand Prix
Meanwhile it has been reported that Ferrari is not prepared to give up on its 2010 car, despite falling off the pace last weekend in Turkey.
A host of upgrades and performance tweaks, to the Bahrain GP winning F10, are expected for Canada and Valencia.
Fernando Alonso failed to make the Q3 qualifying session at Istanbul Park, while Felipe Massa was the Maranello team’s highest placed finisher — behind the Red Bulls, the McLarens, the Mercedes and the Renault of Robert Kubica.
These fans could be waiting a long while...
Alonso did not mince his words in his summary of the weekend in Istanbul, “It was a case of damage limitation in what was a very difficult weekend for us. Our aim in this championship is to fight with McLaren and Red Bull for the podium, definitely not with a Renault for eighth place, with all due respect to my former team. We have to improve our performance.”
Ferrari’s F10 will feature a specific low-downforce bodywork package in Montreal next weekend, before a big update of changes is debuted at Valencia later this month. Spain’s AS newspaper believes the Valencia update will include a major repackaging of the rear end and exhaust system.
Stefano Domenicali with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa shortly before the start of the team's 800th Grand Prix weekend in Turkey
But team boss Stefano Domenicali denies that if the upgrade fails to pull Ferrari back to the front of the grid, Ferrari will begin to focus on 2011. “We are not going to stop developing this car — we are not throwing away these races so far,” he is quoted as saying.
Even though the Italian media is decrying Ferrari’s “disaster” and “crisis”, Alonso is only 14 points off the lead of the drivers’ championship.
Domenicali insisted: “We will continue working on the F10 until the end of the season. The championship is still open and we have seen that anything can happen in the races. We will not give up.”
Spaniard Alonso agrees that Ferrari is still in a position to fight for the title, arguing that no matter how good the Valencia upgrade, it will not be enough to close the gap to the front. “We know that McLaren and Red Bull are very far away and we don’t know if that’s enough. We have to work hard,” he said.
He told La Razon: “We don’t know how long it is going to take, but the truth is that we are almost eight tenths from Red Bull and 6 or 7 tenths from McLaren, and these developments (for Valencia) are not going to give us that much.”
Related posts:
- Controversy and crisis raging in Red Bull pen
- Turkish GP: Ferrari report
- Scuderia Ferrari’s 800th Grand Prix in Turkey
- Indications are that Massa to stay at Ferrari
- Turkish GP: Ferrari preview
