Ferrari’s up Gradation Becomes a Threat for Red Bull
It could have been Fernando Alonso at the place of Lewis Hamilton on the podium in Canada had it not been Jarno Trulli of Lotus in the wrong place at the wrong time, that led Alonso finish at the third place.
Ferrari’s disappointment in this race had been over shadowed by the excitement for what they have planned for the upcoming race that might just pull them to the front with all force.
Alonso, at the Canadian Grand Prix pushed his car too hard to end at the third place whereas other cars similar to his hardly qualified eighth and twelfth, in Turkey a couple of weeks back. It was only the difference of the two tracks that made him pull his car to that extent.
At Istanbul, the Ferrari had the disadvantage of the fast turns where the car kept losing almost 0.5 seconds to the Red Bulls, as it happened at the fast Turn Eight, on the other hand at Montreal there were only long straights connected by slow turns.
The mechanical grip of Ferrari has always proved excellent and Alonso took full advantage of this characteristic to break down the demands of the tricky track.
There were immense possibilities that he would take away the victory had the Lotus not upset him as he was all set to leap past Lewis Hamilton.
However, that was only what it seemed like which could have been or not been true depending on how the others cars would have reacted at the track if Alonso was leading, but one thing is true for sure that Ferrari would have passed the McLaren at that point of the race as Alonso was following Hamilton's tail in full aggression.
Alonso, for the second time, lost his place to more traffic, as Karun Chandhok of Hispania checked out the Ferrari's momentum, allowing Jenson Button at that time to pass by.
However, the fact remains there that at that moment Button had put a lot of pressure on and was far quicker than Alonso. Well! One cannot say exactly that if Alonso would have not lost his pace earlier and had managed to stay ahead of Hamilton, would then could Button have passed him or not.
As the Formula one moves to Europe now, one cannot ignore the fact that the demands at Valencia are much same as that of the Montreal track only, and that it demands a little more down force. So one can safely say that there the Ferrari would be able to give a real good competition once again.
To add to it, it is actually the aerodynamic up gradation that the Ferrari is expected to have before the next race that is going to help the team immensely. The team seems to be very thrilled about what they have seen in the wind tunnel.
It is believed that the amazing performance of the Red Bull to date has been because of its car’s amazing features, such as this aerodynamic characteristic, which now Ferrari is also confident to install.
There are rumours that after this upgrading a difference of as much as 0.7 seconds per lap is possible, coincidentally it is the average qualifying shortfall Ferrari has suffered to Red Bull this season. This feature had excited Ferrari immensely when they witnessed in the tunnel just how much things get improved by this.
Moreover, there is gossip that many of the other teams are also working on their own versions of this aerodynamic up gradation. Like McLaren, Renault and Williams are also expected to introduce their own versions at the Silverstone race but Ferrari gets the edge to start one race ahead of others.
If it all works as brilliantly as the tunnel suggests and Red Bull do not get some other feature to counter this Ferrari advancement, they would be looking at a very serious title challenge from Ferrari into the second half of the season.
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