Ferrari are determined to boost their car’s qualifying pace after its relatively poor showing at last month’s Australian season opener. The Italian team have been hard at work investigating why the 150° Italia proved so much stronger in the Melbourne race than it had during qualifying.
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa qualified in fifth and eighth respectively. And while Ferrari were undoubtedly disappointed Alonso and Massa only finished fourth and seventh in the race itself, they were buoyed by their dominance of the fastest lap results - Massa scored the quickest lap of all, with Alonso in second.
“After the opening round in Australia, we have spent a lot of time analysing all the data acquired in Melbourne and one clear fact is that our race pace there was definitely better than the one we had in qualifying,” deputy technical director Chris Dyer told Ferrari’s official website.
“Much of that was down to how our car uses its tyres, so a major part of the analysis has focused on looking at our one-lap performance, when compared to long-run performance in the race. In addition, we have looked at that other important factor, aerodynamics, to see in which areas we can unlock more of the car’s potential. The results of all these studies have provided us with the basis of a test programme which we will be working through in Malaysia.”
And Fry is hopeful the aero updates the team have planned for the forthcoming Malaysian Grand Prix will help the drivers mirror the stronger race pace during qualifying.
“After analysing qualifying and race data from Melbourne, there are already things we plan to change and improve for Malaysia,” added Fry. “These will be added in to an already busy pre-planned test programme with further aerodynamic updates that were always planned for this race.
“But we have also added a further three or four test items and probably there will be even more new parts to test arriving in the few days between the Malaysia and China races. It’s a case of constant development throughout the season.”
Ferrari will be back on track on Friday as the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend gets underway at the Sepang circuit.
Credit: Formula One Administration Ltd (www.formula1.com)
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