Ferrari must gear up for 2013 – Formula 1
Ferrari lacked competitiveness in the 2012 Formula 1 season as they failed to develop a car which could match the pace of their rival, Red Bull Racing, due to which their star driver, Fernando Alonso failed to claim the championship title despite his tremendous
performances throughout the year.
The Scarlet team faced immense problems during the pre-season testing programme with the design of F2012. Moreover, the technical director, Pat Fry completely ruled out the probability of a podium finish in the season opener and asserted that they would
struggle in the opening few races.
However, Alonso performed incredibly well even with the incompetent car and emerged as the strongest title contender. Furthermore, he led the drivers’ championship for quite a long time in this season. But unfortunately, he faced retirements in a couple
of races due to which he lost some important points in the championship battle and his position became weaker as compared to his main competitor, Sebastian Vettel who seemed unbeatable during the last few races with the fastest car in the field.
Even though, the Spaniard fought really hard until the end of the season, but he lost the championship title to Vettel, only by 3 points.
On the other hand, his teammate, Felipe Massa struggled a lot during the opening few grands prix and could not attain promising results for his team. Additionally, he faced immense criticism over his poor form and was surrounded by many speculations that
the Italian team might replace him with any other driver in the next season.
Nonetheless, he found his pace back after the Mugello test and performed impressively well for his team. The Brazilian driver scored some competitive points towards the end of the season with which Ferrari successfully secured second place in the constructors’
championship and remained ahead of one of their major opponents, McLaren.
The main strength of the Milton Keynes based squad was their quickest car which was developed by their chief technical officer, Adrian Newey.
On the other hand, Ferrari’s development process was quite effective too as they came up really stronger after the Mugello test, but their best wasn’t good enough as they could not match the pace of their main rival, Red Bull in the last few races.
Therefore, they need to gear up and should make the most out of the upcoming winter testing in order to achieve good results right from the start of the next season to make their position stronger in the championship fight.
It will be important to mention that at the end of this season, Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo insisted that they need to enhance their development process to achieve more in the future and to win the championship fight in the coming year.
“Now is the time to look ahead to next year,” Montezemolo said. “I want us to start with a car that is immediately capable of fighting for the win and it has to be our first task. In order to achieve that, each one of us must improve in our own roles by
at least a millimetre.”
“We must revamp our organisation and our working methods to try and be at the same level as the best, right from the first race, which for too many years now we have failed to do,” he added.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
Tags: