If you had just walked into the F1 scene after two races, you’d probably think that Ferrari, in particular Alonso, have high chances for success this season.
After two races, Fernando Alonso is leading the championship with 35 points to Lewis Hamilton’s 30. But in reality the Italian team are struggling.
Alonso’s win in Malaysia was largely due to an eventful race that saw large downpours of rain and several incidents with the top drivers including Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel.
According to Pat Fry, Ferrari technical chief, the team are around 0.8 seconds off the leading pace in dry conditions – and the weather in Malaysia was quite opposite!
“From quite early on in testing, we realised we had quite a few issues we needed to sort out. Everyone at the factory has been working hard at that, as we still have a long way to go. I think our dry qualifying performance is still around 0.8s off the best while we want to be the best ourselves. Damp low grip conditions suit our car and flatter some of the issues we have with the F2012 at the moment. You could see that in Melbourne on Friday and again in the race in Malaysia.”
Pat Fry revealed that the team are taking with them five new upgrades for their car in China, some of which will be visibly noticeable. Ferrari are working to accelerate the speed of development, and some of the updates this weekend were originally targeted for Spain.
Despite this, they still have an even bigger overall upgrade planned for the Barcelona race, which they hope will go some way to turn their fortunes around.
Source: Autosport
