Dawn broke over Budapest
with clear skies at last, as the last members of the
Ferrari team left the Hungarian capital yesterday
morning. Some no doubt thought it might have been better
to have seen the sun twenty four hours earlier, possibly
along with some slightly hotter temperatures, more
suited to this time of year. But there is no point in
pondering on what might have been, in what turned out to
be the wettest July in the history of Formula 1. It is
now August and time to look ahead.
It’s not yet time for the Scuderia to take a breather.
The two week break, established by common accord with
the other FOTA member teams, starts next Sunday.
Therefore, the next few days sees everyone working flat
out to prepare right down to the smallest detail for the
second part of the season, which restarts at the magical
Spa-Francorchamps circuit on 28 August. The 150º Italias
used on Sunday in Hungary came back to base on Monday
afternoon and the work of rebuilding and preparation
started immediately, given that they will already have
to be ready to leave for Belgium on Monday 22nd. At the
end of May, Stefano Domenicali had stated that Ferrari
would see how went the races leading up to the summer
break and then decide the direction for the second half
of the year. So, the time has now come to analyse this
section of the season and as Domenicali himself said on
Sunday night at the Hungaroring, there are no plans to
throw in the towel. Clearly, the situation in the
championship has not undergone a radical change and no
one is under any illusions at Maranello, but it’s a fact
that the Scuderia has been back on form and, from Monaco
onwards, has been capable of fighting for the wins at
every race. It is not by chance that Fernando is the
driver who has picked up the most points (76) from the
last four races and is the only driver to have been on
the podium in all of them, with one win, two second
places and one third.
One department that is going to be under a lot of
pressure in the next few days is production, which since
the recent reorganisation, is led by Corrado Lanzone:
the aim is to produce all the planned updates from the
development programme, especially in terms of the car’s
aerodynamic package, in time for the next race. In fact,
everyone will be kept very busy: from the engine
specialists who will be refining the interface of the
exhaust gases with the aerodynamics, an area which in
turn will be working on fine tuning the new parts for
Monza and the run of races outside Europe. The
engineering group will also have plenty to do, as they
push forward on parts aimed at improving the pit stop
process. And all of this taking place as work on
defining the concepts that will shape the 2012 car gets
underway.
The drivers are also still at the coalface. Felipe Massa
left Budapest on Sunday night along with some of the
team and yesterday he was in Maranello to work on the
simulator and to have a series of meetings with the
engineers, before he flew off to Brazil last night. As
for Fernando Alonso, he returned home to Spain, but next
weekend, he and Stefano Domenicali will be taking part
in Wrooom Summer 2011, the summer version of the
event that Scuderia Ferrari has hosted for the past
twenty winters for a group of Formula 1 journalists, at
Madonna di Campiglio in the Dolomites. However, from
next Sunday, everyone will get a real break in which to
fully recharge their batteries before tackling the
remaining eight races of the season, running from 28
August to 27 November, on three different continents.
That means three months of very intense activity and,
all “Ferraristi” hope they will also be three months
filled with satisfaction.
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