Ferrari going for a more aggressive approach for rest of the 2011 Formula 1 season
Ferrari have been struggling to perform so far in the 2011 Formula 1 season as they are well off the pace of McLaren and Red Bull Racing Team.
In order to break the silence, the team has finally decided to go for a more aggressive approach in order to improve its performance and score some good points at the upcoming races of the season.
The team has recently admitted that it has been a bit too conservative during the initial designing of its new car, the F150. However, the team has vowed to improve its performance and in order to do that, it has opted for a more aggressive approach.
Both of the team’s drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa have been struggling to perform well so far due to which the team is yet to score a podium.
The team’s new car was looking quite promising during the pre-season testing period but it seems that since the 2011 Formula 1 season commenced, McLaren and Red Bull Racing Team were way ahead of Ferrari in terms of pace.
Ferrari failed to perform at the season opening race which took place in Australia and according to the statistics, the F150 was around 1 second slower than Red Bull’s RB7 in terms of pace during the qualifying session.
As a result, the team boss Luca di Montezemolo is demanding better results from his team as he initially stated that in 2011, they will be aiming for “nothing less than the titles” which is quite clearly not the case at the moment.
Nevertheless, the team’s chief designer Nicholas Tombazis has admitted that keeping aside the problems the car faced due to the wind tunnel, the F150 is still not as aggressive as the team expected.
“We hoped to be further forward, more competitive, but it was not the case. The problem is linked mainly to the aerodynamics and can be divided into two parts. The first revolves around a lack of correlation between data from the wind tunnel and that seen
at the track: we are reacting to correct this problem,” Tombazis told the media.
Other than that, he admitted that even without these problems, the team is not strong enough to compete alongside the top running teams of the sport. Ferrari did not have any ‘strategy’ as they were neither reactive nor aggressive enough during the development
process of its new car.
“We have made some adjustments to our working practices to try and focus much more on car performance: we have changed the working practice in the wind tunnel and in terms of the development of the aerodynamic design side,” he said.
Because of these improvements, the team is hoping for better results in the near future and since the team is applying upgrades to their car this weekend, they are expecting some good results in order to proceed with the development at the upcoming races.
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