Ferrari announces five improvements for the Chinese Grand Prix
Always in search of performance, Scuderia Ferrari is not capitalizing on its Malaysian victory and continues to work intensively on development to address the issues encountered by the F2012.
Leader in the drivers’ championship, with Fernando Alonso and his 35 points, the Ferrari team is filled with joy but remains realistic: “I certainly did not expect to have a driver at the top of the championship,” declares Pat Fry on the Ferrari website.
The opportunity to reflect on this atypical Grand Prix won by Fernando Alonso and to review Felipe Massa’s race: « The car is quite difficult to drive, and Fernando managed to get the best out of it, while with Felipe, we struggled to find the right balance to satisfy him. Furthermore, in Malaysia, Felipe was on intermediate tires after the red flag, but we had a lot of understeer, so we gambled on an additional pit stop, which did not work out. The fact is the tires were only experiencing graining and were not worn out. This was the only pit call that wasn’t good during the last race. It was a step back for Felipe, one of the unfortunate circumstances for him ».
Reflecting on the pre-season, the Scuderia engineer believes there is still significant work to be done, especially in normal race conditions: « Quite early during testing, we realized we had some issues to resolve. Everyone at the factory has worked hard on these, and we still have a long way to go. I think our dry performance in qualifying is still about eight-tenths behind the best, whereas we want to be the best ourselves. Wet conditions with low grip suit our car and make us forget some of the difficulties we have with the F2012 for now. You could see that in Melbourne on Friday and also during the race in Malaysia ».
« We are constantly working on improving the flaws we have. » A job that seems to be paying off since the F2012 will feature at Shanghai several novelties that should have only appeared upon returning to Europe, in Barcelona: « New elements are arriving, and we are trying to get them on the track as quickly as possible. We will have five improvements in China, some quite visible, others less so. Also, there will be a more significant package improvement in Spain. It would have been nice to have them earlier, but we have already brought a few elements that we were developing for Spain here ». An improvement that should, in all likelihood, correspond to the deployment of a new car, in place of the F2012.
