Poor F-duct cost Ferrari the championship: Gerhard Berger
Former Austrian Formula One driver Gerhard Berger believes that it was not the poor race strategy, rather a badly designed F-duct that cost Ferrari the driver’s title. While talking to the media earlier today he backed the criticism of everyone who said
that it was actually Fernando Alonso’s car that deprived him of his third drivers' title this year.
The Ferrari driver went into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix leading the drivers’ championship. To grab the third title of his career, Alonso only needed to finish in fourth place, after Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won the penultimate race of the season. After
a two-hour long battle, the Spaniard could only manage seventh place, allowing Vettel to become the youngest champion in Formula One history.
Red Bull was quite optimistic going into the final race of the season. Once they brought in Mark Webber for an early pit stop, Ferrari responded by asking Alonso to come into the pits too. However this did not work well for the two-time world champion, as
he got stuck behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov as he emerged from the pits. For the remaining 40 laps Alonso kept struggling and was unable to overtake Petrov, finally finishing in seventh place with Webber coming in eighth.
Although everyone blamed the team for their poor race strategy, others believed that Red Bull distracted Ferrari on purpose, but Berger believes that there was no problem with Ferrari’s approach towards the race. The Toro Rosso team co-owner instead says
that a better car could have taken Alonso to the front, even after the making the same pit stop.
The Austrian told reporters, "Afterwards, when you've got all the information at hand and you have time to think about it, you're always smarter. It was easy to criticise Ferrari after that race, but it's incredibly difficult to do the right thing in the
crucial second.”
He believes that at such a crucial season-ending race, with the championship at stake, such mistakes in decision making can happen. However if Ferrari must be criticised, it should be for not giving Alonso the right car, as with a better f-duct he could
have passed Petrov to pick up the championship.
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