Ferrari feels better prepared for 2012
Stefano Domenicali believes that the personnel changes made in recent months within Scuderia Ferrari should pay off in 2012.
Scuderia Ferrari experienced a difficult 2011 season, highlighted by only one victory achieved at Silverstone by Fernando Alonso. The Italian team continues to proclaim loudly that it intends to bounce back in 2012 and will present a car more aggressive than its predecessor.
But Stefano Domenicali, the director of the Ferrari team, acknowledges that even if the team is optimistic and seems to have made progress, the only truth will be that of the track on March 17, 2012, at the end of the first qualifying session of the year.
When we see the stopwatch of the first qualifying session of the first race, we will know the answer, but I see several things that make me optimistic that we are doing a good job, Domenicali said.
This hoped-for renewal on the red team’s side was made possible by the recruitment of several highly talented engineers, notably Pat Fry, who became the technical director in place of Aldo Costa.
We have tried to look to the future and change the organization to ensure that in terms of ideas and teamwork within the technical office, at the level of work with the wind tunnel and simulation, we are better prepared. And I am convinced that we are.
«Then, as always, we know that the first result where we will compare our work with that of our rivals is the first qualifying session of the first race. But we are working in the right direction. »
One of the problems for Ferrari in 2011 was poor correlation between wind tunnel data and track data. But Pat Fry acknowledges that while things can never be perfect, they have improved over the past several weeks, which makes him approach 2012 with optimism as well.
« We can never have a perfect correlation. It’s something that constantly evolves. But we have learned a lot and we are improving. We need to be better. Even with on-track tests, you would like this correlation, but once you can use mathematical models to analyze the car and find what is fastest, it also allows you to make better decisions, » Pat Fry recently stated in an interview with Autosport.
