The Formula 1 circus does
not get a moment to catch its breath with this
back-to-back schedule in the Orient. With the first leg
done and dusted in Malaysia, now it’s China’s turn, with
the third race of the season taking place at the
Shanghai circuit. And there is even less time to take a
breather if, like Scuderia Ferrari and its drivers, one
finds oneself having to play catch-up in both
championships.
The points haul of 18 from Sepang matches that from
Melbourne, even if it was amassed differently: in
Australia, Fernando had finished fourth with Felipe
seventh, whereas in Malaysia, the Brazilian finished
fifth and his team-mate came home right behind him
before picking up a 20 second penalty, which actually
had no effect on his final position. The team thus finds
itself with exactly half the points of Red Bull, while
Fernando and Felipe are fifth and sixth in the Drivers’
table, 30 and 34 points down on the leader Vettel.
The result of the Malaysian Grand Prix confirmed what we
had already seen in Australia, namely that in
qualifying, the 150º Italia is not able to fight for a
place on the front two rows, given there are at least
two cars clearly quicker than it, whereas in the race,
only Vettel’s Red Bull is out of reach, Ferrari
believes. That explains why Stefano Domenicali and Pat
Fry were not exactly delighted with the 18 points as
they believe its does not reflect the potential on
display in the race.
There were two incidents that badly affected the race
for the two Ferrari men. A failure on car number 5 meant
the rear wing went from moveable to immoveable, thus
preventing Alonso from easily passing Hamilton when he
was behind the Englishman. Fernando thus had to take
some risks in overtaking and that led to a collision
between the two on lap 46, which wiped out his hopes of
a podium finish. It was a real shame, because the
Spaniard’s race pace was always up there with the best.
Felipe also ran very
competitively, but a problem when changing the left
front wheel at the first pit stop cost him precious
seconds and places, which probably cost him a chance of
fighting for the top places towards the end. This
incident also shows just how frenetic is the activity in
pit lane now during the race. There are many more pit
stops than last year and, unlike in the past, these are
no longer dictated by the amount of fuel on board or to
be taken on, a factor which meant it was easier to
estimate suitably early when the stop would come and
also allowed more time for the tyres to be changed,
because it always took longer to refuel. Today, the
chances of making a mistake are much higher. In
Melbourne, Ferrari got the benefit of a mistake at
Webber’s pit stop and yesterday it was the boys in red
who paid the price. However, of the seven pit stops for
the team, only Felipe’s first one can be classed as a
failure: the others were pretty much within the norm,
while some, including Alonso’s final one when the nose
was changed, were very good. Clearly a team like Ferrari
must always be excellent and so logically we can expect
more effort going into achieving better performances on
a more consistent level.
The team has already arrived in Shanghai, ahead of all
the equipment making its way from Malaysia. The FOM
cargo is currently on its way to China and it will only
be around lunchtime on Today that the packing cases will
be available at the circuit, also allowing for the time
required to clear customs. Some of the team however,
have already set off for Italy. Domenicali, Costa and
Fry were expected at Maranello in order to keep a close
eye on the car’s development programme. The number one
priority is still naturally enough, an investigation
into the aerodynamics and on finding out why the cars’
performance on track does not match the numbers produced
by the wind tunnel. It is a very tricky operation, with
consequences for every area of the development process:
better to follow it first hand, to push it along a bit
further. That way some updates planned for later races
might actually be available earlier, hopefully starting
here in China.
