I wasn't expecting a good performance this weekend, but Practice has left me feeling more positive about Ferrari's chances. Realistically, the car is not good enough to be a race winner, but there are definite improvements seen. Firstly, Alonso thinks Ferrari have made progress with its tyre warm-up issues. He says: "In Australia it was a problem with the warm-up, even in Malaysia with the hard tyre the first lap was not the quickest with the hard, but for whatever reason here it was okay. For Felipe and me we found better warm-up in the hard tyres here than the other two races, so should be good for us in terms of qualifying and the race, for sure." As track temperatures here are lower, this is a lot to be positive about. Hopefully this means that Ferrari will not have to waste a set of soft tyres in Q1. I believe they have made changes to their suspension which has improved traction and works better with the tyres. I was staring at the front wings for most of the session looking for the slightest hint of flex, and there wasn't any. But there are significant changes, but still unsure as to how effective the changes are: please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image I also hear that due to lack of time, Ferrari are only able to bring 1 new front wing, which (as we saw in practice), is on Alonso's car. Unsure about the credibility of the source though.
This is very good news; if they managed to sort this out in this short space of time, by the next race Ferrari should have a pretty good car.
I think If they can get the car up higher in qualifying then they have a good chance of a good result. They are not far off
I reckon they'll still need to sacrifice a set of options in Q1. Apparently they're up to 1.9 seconds faster (I'm sure that's what they said on 5 live), Ferrari aren't quick enough to take that sort of gamble.
Might being the operative word. They've been caught out by this too many times before, they won't be daft enough to try it again. I'm pretty sure McLaren used a set last weekend and they're comfortably faster than Ferrari.
Facts are Facts. Ferrari are not quick enough to fight Red Bull or McLaren. In the race they are closer but still not quite there. They need to sort this situation out, and fast otherwise before we get to Silverstone, Fernando will not repeat those words with confidence(I will win this championship). The front wing is an area to look at and so is the wind tunnel, as it hasn`t matched what is happening on the race track. Small things like sidepods and vanes and cooling devices will bring around 3 tenths in my opinion. But the main area is the Front Wing as that is the first area of contact with the air which then sets the scene on whether the airflow will be directed to all the right areas on the cars. PS.Jose check your PMs mate...
moving swiftly on... Ferrari won't be able to Qualify high enough to trouble RBs and McLs. They will disappear over the horizon. One day they might catch up.
There are quite a few negatives here but it might be worth remembering that Alonso caught Hamilton in the last race, even though he couldn't pass him. In race trim, Ferrari appear to be very close to McLaren (at least if we restrict this comparison to Alonso and Hamilton for the moment). There can be little doubt that Red Bull is a country mile ahead, but I think McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes are - at the moment - all much closer than popular opinion might suggest. The biggest differences between these teams is their respective driver line-ups (if we overlook Ferrari's budget).
For sure Red Bull are superior, but the Ferrari race pace is actually very good. I think their biggest problem (other than wind tunnel issues) is the lack of front downforce, and due to lack of running for Alonso in practice, we still don't know if this latest update makes the situation any better. If Alonso can struggle with poor traction and massive understeer and still fight wheel to wheel with McLaren, it means the car has big potential. Fixing the lack of front downforce, combined with the addition of a flexible front wing - I think - should ensure they leapfrog McLaren. Whether it's enough to take on Red Bull, i'm not too sure yet.
