Fernando Alonso is not satisfied with his sixth place in Malaysia: the Spaniard highlights Ferrari's problems.
"Sepang didn't go the way we wanted. We paid dearly for a failure of the mobile rear wing management system. I know the technicians identified the problem and fixed it, if the system had worked I could have overtaken Hamilton on the pit straight and I wouldn't have found myself wrestling with him wheel to wheel".
Alonso felt he could get into the top three.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get on the podium: we had the chance to do it and it would have been a great result, also giving us a good boost from the point of view of morale. As we had seen in Australia, our performance in the race in Malaysia was definitely better than in qualifying: at Sepang both Felipe and I had a pace that could make us fight for the top three positions and that's an important signal from where we can start again".
The Ferrari driver has no doubts: for the final victory there is an absolute favourite.
"Red Bull at the moment seems out of reach, we would always like to fight to win but it seems impossible, at least for now. In Maranello the technicians are working hard to try to improve the performance of the F150th Italia. In Shanghai we should try a front wing and some other aerodynamic upgrades: hopefully they will give us some advantage but we will have to evaluate their performance in Friday's practice".
In Shanghai there will not be the classic Sepang problem, linked to the temperature of the asphalt.
"There will be much cooler temperatures than in Malaysia. We will see, starting from Friday, how the tires will behave, which will still be hard as the first and soft as an alternative. I heard from President Montezemolo after the Sepang race: he was not happy and I cannot blame him, neither am I. We know we have to react immediately to catch up with the championship leader. But it's also true that, if we take into account the two individual races, I got eight points more than I did last year".
From his part, Felipe Massa tries to look at the positive side of the current situation.
"Two races, the same winner, always the same teams on the podium, without Ferrari ever being in one of these categories. If you don't win you're not happy and you try to change the situation but, in my opinion, things are not as bad as they seem. It's true that, in qualifying, we weren't fast enough in both races and that, in Melbourne, the race pace wasn't that impressive either. But in Malaysia on Sunday we saw something better. We have to keep that in mind even though, like last year, we know we have to push as hard as we can to improve our performance on the flying lap in qualifying. During the winter it was thought that perhaps the starting grid would be less important, as overtaking could have been easier. The way the first two races went, if you don't start in front you won't finish in front, even if you have a good pace in the race".
We’re off to a good start: to the Chinese Grand Prix question, Montezemolo replies:
"Let's not talk about it. It will be a weekend of passion".
In this joke of the president of Ferrari there is all the bitterness of the fan who suddenly discovered after two races that the car can not compete with Red Bull Racing. Alonso himself, on the other hand, confirms:
"At the moment we have to be more realistic, be honest with ourselves and think of the podium as our main objective. Of course the championship is long, so now is the time to score as many points as possible and then, when we have a different car, we need to score take some victories. I agree that we had some difficulties at the beginning of the season. The problem is, we're not fast enough, for reasons we don't yet know. But we know we need to work, because there are no secrets in Formula 1 and aerodynamics are still the main factor influencing performance. If there is still a gap between us and the former, it is because we need to improve mainly in this area".
In Alonso's words, in short, there is already the whole Ferrari strategy: contain the damage until the car is as fast as Red Bull Racing and then win the Grand Prix by storm. It is easy to agree on the first phase of Alonso's thought, but on the second? Ferrari, as we know, has always been a team capable of incredible comebacks, but now - from what we saw last season and in these first two races - this specialty has also become the prerogative of McLaren and Renault. And that further complicates the battle for Ferrari. But let's go back to the race on Sunday 17 April 2011. Why does Ferrari have no hope? Just four days away from the Malaysian Grand Prix, the single-seaters are identical to those used in Sepang, so there are no major changes at all. That's why the ultimate goal can only be a podium, as Alonso says. That's a fancy way of saying that they only aim for third place. On Thursday, April 14, 2011, on the eve of the Chinese Grand Prix, at a press conference, a little because of a very different start to the championship from the one dreamed of in winter, a little because of the weather conditions, with that dark sun behind the mephitic fog of Shanghai, a little because of the overdose of hyper-protein bars forced by the thousand food alarms of this period, Fernando Alonso is in a bad mood. Disfigured by the hat with the sponsors and by a pair of aerodynamic Puma goggles mirrored in smoke, he takes the floor at the press conference and razes to the ground the whole castle of illusions that journalists (especially Spanish ones) had built on what, little, good had been seen in Sepang.
"The truth about cars is that on Fridays we are very slow, then on Saturdays we are slow, and on Sundays too".
Amen. So, does anyone insist, how do you explain the difference in performance in Malaysia, between Saturday of qualifying and Sunday of race?
"It’s just that we have a very reliable car, so we can use it 100 percent for the whole race while maybe the others on 58 laps have to try to keep it a little bit longer and maybe not always push to the max".
In short: it's not that Ferrari is going strong in the race, it's that the others are going slower than in qualifying. As I said, this pessimism is perhaps also a little fuelled by the particular diet - bars and rice boiled in bottled water - to which he voluntarily forced himself, the only one in the paddock, not so much by the Fukushima psychosis (it is 1.500 km away) as by the anti-doping alarm launched by the Spanish sportsmen's association after the Contador affair: in the meat, in these areas, there are often traces of clenbuterol, massively used by local breeders. The idea, however, is that, in addition to pessimism, there is also a bit of pre-tactics in the words of the Spanish. The race pace of the Ferrari did not seem so irrelevant in Sepang and this is also underlined in the words of the other team members. In those of Massa, for example. The Brazilian driver, by the way, received an affectionate encouragement from President Montezemolo:
"He’s back in great shape, I’m glad for him".
The effort, in general, is still to fly low:
"The Malaysian Grand Prix took place just four days ago. Four days in which no one has had time to prepare important developments. So it is unlikely that the technical distances have changed".
Ferrari will try a slightly modified wing on Friday morning, and will consider whether to bring it into the race. It has nothing to do with the flexing one from Red Bull that is killing the World Cup and that in Maranello have started copying. It is rather an evolution of the wing already present on the F150th Italia. But Alonso does not go into the technical discourse:
"I honestly don’t expect a different weekend from the one we had in Sepang. We'll fight to get on the podium. Maybe the circuit turns out to be more favorable to us and so we'll play it a little bit more. Then from Turkey, when we bring more important developments, we will see".
Friday, April 15, 2011 the weekend in China began as it had ended in Australia and Malaysia, with World Champion Sebastian Vettel in front of everyone. The German driver was the fastest on the first day of free practice at the Shanghai circuit, with a lap time of 1’37”688, leaving behind the McLaren-Mercedes of England’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Fourth and fifth for the Mercedes of Germany's Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, followed by the Ferrari of Brazil's Felipe Massa. A different situation for the Spaniard Fernando Alonso, slowed down by hydraulic problems that occurred on his Ferrari. Vettel had already been the fastest in the morning practice, ahead of team-mate Webber.
"There's not a magic piece you can put in a car and it makes you go faster. We have to try and react".
Says Fernando Alonso, after the second practice session.
"We tried little with the new parts, as well as the tyres, but we didn’t have much time. I don't expect any changes compared to what we saw in Malaysia and Australia: McLaren and especially Red Bull are faster than us and therefore they are the favourites. At the moment we are not able to fight for victory but that doesn't mean we won't try".
Instead, Felipe Massa shows a little more optimism:
"It will not be an easy qualification but I think we will be more competitive".
The Brazilian finished in sixth place, 0.819 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel:
"The car performed well, especially on the log run. We were closer to McLaren than in the last race. The Red Bull is like the Ferrari of a few years ago, a car that I didn't drive".
It’s better not getting any easy illusions. Sebastian Vettel, after dominating the two practice sessions in Shanghai, remains calm ahead of qualifying and the race.
"It's been a good day, but it's only Friday and we're at the beginning of the weekend. We found a good pace and are happy with how the car behaved. There's still a lot to do and I think the battle will be tighter both tomorrow and Sunday, so we'll see where we can improve".
Mark Webber is also satisfied, second in the morning but tenth in the afternoon for a few too many problems.
"It wasn't a great session the second, especially on the short run with the new tyres. We will take a look at the Kers tonight, we would love to use it this weekend, but overall it was a good Friday, we learned a lot and the car proved to be reliable".
When everything goes wrong, when certainties crumble, when adversities seem insurmountable and opponents are superheroes, it is then that the situation can really precipitate. Ferrari is praying that this does not happen, on the contrary, it hopes that qualifying will ignite a glimpse of light. Meanwhile, they are forced to record more disturbing creaks. Two in particular. The first concerns the only characteristic of the F150th Italia so far considered positive, namely reliability. The second is one of the historical strengths of the team: the legendary superiority of its mechanics. The myth of reliability had already been damaged at Sepang, when some capricious mechanism of the moving rear wing forced Alonso to make an absurd effort to overtake Hamilton, an effort that lasted until the fatal touch with the Englishman, costing valuable points. Yesterday he fell down for good. Ferrari had to dedicate the whole day to important aerodynamic tests: a new wing had even arrived from Maranello that was supposed to provide answers to the engineers called in to cross what Stefano Domenicali called the deadline, before abandoning the initial projects and aiming for a Plan B. But the program went bad. An hydraulic issue has mortified Alonso's working day:
"I wasted precious time".
In the second session, the Spaniard could only make 17 laps, scoring the 14th fastest time, exactly half of the work done by Sebastian Vettel, who was at the top of the time table after 34 laps. In the end, useful data to understand something of the aerodynamic mystery of the F150th Italia (fast in the wind tunnel, slow on the track) are not many. Alonso explains:
"I don’t expect anything different from Malaysia for the race now, except for the tyres that seem to wear less, we’ll have fewer pit stops, two or three at the most".
And that brings us straight to the second creaky myth. That of the superiority of the mechanics present at the box of the Maranello team. Pirelli has released some official data on the times of the pit stops made so far and it turned out that Ferrari, which has always been an excellent tire changer, this year is just in fourth place in the specialty classification. Elaborated on the average time of the entire pit stop, from the entrance to the exit of the pit lane, the ranking is dominated by the usual Red Bull, which in Malaysia set the season record with 21.893 seconds. Behind him is the McLaren and Lotus Renault. At a difficult time like this, this figure also has its meaning, without considering that, because of the characteristics of the tires and the cars, everyone in the paddock agrees that the pit stops will be one of the decisive moments this year. To lighten the picture, in the evening, come the words of Felipe Massa. The Brazilian, after observing and recognising the speed of Red Bull Racing, tries to save the salvageable:
"We’re a little closer to the McLaren, and the race pace seemed interesting to me. I mean, I think it could be a race similar to the one we saw in Malaysia. But there will be suffering".
But that was clear. In addition to the technical problems, the gap with Red Bull Racing, the pessimism rising around the F150th Italia, another, unexpected and more serious inconvenience makes the weekend in China even more complicated for Ferrari: a mechanic was hit by an aneurysm on his arrival in Shanghai. The young gearbox mechanic, who became ill after his arrival in China with the team, was hospitalized and operated on urgently and successfully in a hospital in the Chinese city. Ferrari's top executives are following the situation closely. The man remains under observation. On Saturday 16 April 2011, Sebastian Vettel set the best time in the morning session, again ahead of the two McLaren; on the other Red Bull Racing, that of Mark Webber, there were technical problems related to the functioning of the Kers. Nico Rosberg, who finished with the fourth fastest time, had set the best time until the start of the last quarter hour of practice, when the drivers tested the Soft tyres. A few hours later, Sebastian Vettel took pole position at the Chinese Grand Prix, the third round of the 2011 Formula 1 World Championship. The German Red Bull Racing driver is the fastest in the third qualifying round on the Shanghai circuit with a time of 1'33"706. The World Champion, third pole position of the season and number 18 in his career, will start ahead of the McLaren-Mercedes of England's Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. Nico Rosberg scores the fourth half and will close the second row. The Ferraris of Spain's Fernando Alonso and Brazil's Felipe Massa occupy the third row: Maranello's cars will start from fifth and sixth positions. Behind the Maranello cars are the Toro Rosso of the Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari and the Force India of the Scottish Paul di Resta. Ninth and tenth for Toro Rosso of Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi and for Renault of Russia's Vitalij Petrov, who managed to take part in Q3 due to a breakdown in the second half of the official practice. New rejection for Michael Schumacher, eliminated in Q2. The German Mercedes driver will start from the seventh row. It's definitely worse for Mark Webber: the Australian Red Bull Racing driver is paying dearly for the wrong strategy chosen by his team. Webber entered the track with Hard tyres in Q1 and failed to qualify for the next stage. It will then take off from the ninth row. At the end of the rehearsals, Sebastian Vettel lets himself go to happiness:
"I did it again but I have to remind myself and the team that it's hard to get pole every time. Today, for example, not everything went as smoothly as we thought. I wasn't comfortable in Q2, I made a mistake, but in spite of everything I was pretty confident and, in fact, we managed to improve in Q3. We did a good job, but now we have to focus on tomorrow's race, which will be long and difficult. We are happy because the car is in order and we have every reason to be optimistic, but the threat is always to feel too strong, we have to make sure that does not happen. Tomorrow is another day, it's as if we didn't do anything today".
Jenson Button will start behind Vettel, followed by team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The English driver was firmly aiming for pole position, but had to give in to Red Bull's overpower:
"You always hope and try as long as you can, but then Sebastian's pace in Q3 was really fantastic. In Q2 it seemed possible to take pole, then I saw his time in Q3 and I realized that we had to fight for second place, which for me is the best result of the year. After Friday's free practice time we couldn't think of such positive qualifying, I have to thank the team who practically rebuilt the car".
Even Hamilton seems satisfied and convinced that he can do well in the race:
"Starting from third place on the grid is a good result, I have the set of tyres I qualified with and another set for tomorrow's race, and that's very important".
Ferrari will once again have to settle for chasing Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull Racing. The Spanish driver is satisfied with the result obtained, admitting the superiority of the rivals:
"We're not fast, that was the best we could get. Red Bull continues to be unreachable especially on the single lap. The gap we have charged is similar to what we had in the Australian Grand Prix. We can't be fast in qualifying and racing".
While Felipe Massa said:
"It went a little better than in Malaysia but we are still behind. It's not a surprise Vettel's performance, it's Webber's. McLaren is also stronger than us and Mercedes has improved and will be a very tough opponent tomorrow in the race. In Q2, after the red flag, I went out immediately to try to be the first and have a clear track. In front of me was Perez but I overtook him on the launch lap and it was good because I was able to do a clean lap and improve my time".
Mercedes collects the umpteenth flop from Michael Schumacher, but hopes remain high thanks to the fourth place won by Nico Rosberg, satisfied with the progress made by his single-seater:
"I'm happy with our performance. We have improved our car this weekend: we are still not where we would like to be but we have made progress and are closer to the front. We also worked hard on the pace for the race, we have every chance to do well tomorrow".
The mood of Michael Schumacher, who will start from the seventh row, is different:
"It’s a shame because the team has clearly shown that it has grown. Nico's fourth half testifies to what our real goal was. I couldn't put together a good lap in Q2, we realised my rear wing wasn't working properly at Turn 14. I hope to start well and keep a good pace to recover some positions".
On Sunday, April 17, 2011, at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix, the two McLaren drivers pass Sebastian Vettel who starts from pole position. Nico Rosberg follows, ahead of the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, the two Force India of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil, Jaime Alguersuari and Michael Schumacher. During the first lap the German passes Alguersuari. Vitantonio Liuzzi, author of an early start, is penalized with a drive-through. Mark Webber, who rides the Hard tyres, only regains a few positions but will be among the first drivers to stop at the pits, being able to do the rest of the race with Soft tyres. During lap 10, Alguersuari is the first to change the tyres. But the mechanics did not properly fix the right rear wheel, which detached from the car: the Spaniard was forced to withdraw. During lap 13 Nico Rosberg is the first of the leading drivers to change tyres: he still rides a Soft set. On lap 14, Sebastian Vettel passed Lewis Hamilton; the Red Bull Racing driver and Jenson Button returned to the pits shortly after to change tyres. The Englishman, however, misses the stop, stopping on the Red Bull Racing one; this allows the German to pass him at the exit of the pit stop. On lap 15, Felipe Massa passes Lewis Hamilton. At the end of the first series of stops Nico Rosberg is in first position, followed by Vettel, Button, Massa, Hamilton, Schumacher and Alonso. Fernando Alonso's dreams of glory vanish, who will only manage to pass Michael Schumacher during lap 25, when the gap from Massa is over 10 seconds. During lap 25, Jenson Button makes the second change of tires. Then, during lap 26, Nico Rosberg and the recovering Mark Webber returned to the pits to replace the tires. Sebastian Vettel takes first place, ahead of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, who seem to be the only ones who want to make only two stops. During lap 29 Nico Rosberg passes Fernando Alonso, in crisis with the use of tyres. And during lap 30, the Spaniard is also passed by the two McLaren drivers. Between lap 31 and lap 34 Sebastian Vettel and the two Ferrari drivers return to the pit to make the stop. Nico Rosberg is back in first place, ahead of the two McLaren of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.
At the start of lap 35, Lewis Hamilton passes his team-mate, Jenson Button, with a big braking on the first corner. Between lap 39 and lap 41 Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button returned to the pits to make another stop, leaving the first position to Sebastian Vettel, who was in turn followed by Felipe Massa. The top five drivers are locked up in under eight seconds. Lewis Hamilton is wild: the English driver passes Nico Rosberg during lap 42 and three laps later is already able to take second place away from Felipe Massa. Meanwhile, on lap 41, Mark Webber also made his last pit stop and returned to the track in seventh position, 30 seconds from the first. But being the only driver to use Soft tyres, he starts to lap 2 seconds faster than Sebastian Vettel. In the laps to follow Nico Rosberg attacks Felipe Massa, but misses a brake and gives up his position also to Jenson Button. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel tries to resist Lewis Hamilton's impetuous return, and the two Ferrari drivers quickly lose positions. After two laps in which the German driver reacts well to the attacks, Lewis Hamilton takes the lead during lap 52 but it is mainly Mark Webber who animates the finale. The Australian passed Nico Rosberg on lap 54 and Jenson Button on the penultimate lap, taking third place after starting 18th. Lewis Hamilton wins the Chinese Grand Prix and takes his 15th career victory. The race marks the new record of drivers who reached the finish line classified: 23. The previous record belonged to the 1952 British Grand Prix (with 32 entries) with 22; also in the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix there were 22 cars at the finish line, but Lucas Di Grassi was not classified. Sebastian Vettel is second, followed by Mark Webber, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher, Vitalij Petrov and Kamui Kobayashi. With 56 furious and fast laps Lewis Hamilton breaks the wings of Red Bull Racing and gives Formula 1 hope that the 2011 World Championship is still alive. It's back to Europe, now, and in the DHL boxes, in addition to the wings, engines and all the other packaged devilishness, the British team also sends a message to Sebastian Vettel and company: if you want the title, you'll have to sweat for it. McLaren's message, along with Ferrari's inevitable disaster, are the only two clear aspects of a race as exciting as indecipherable, disrupted by Pirelli tires that, between ease of degradation and difference in performance between the various sets, make every strategy a bet.
More than a Grand Prix, in short, it was a big mess, with the drivers who - for the first 40 laps out of 56 - did not understand who was in front and who was behind and bothered to radio their track engineers, who, in turn, consulted all the tools of analysis, telemetry and computers, in the end gave in to a little reassuring I don't know. Difficult conditions that, like in Malaysia, were resolved in a memorable finale, after the last tyre change, when the race gave away a handful of laps of a dazzling beauty, and on the stage came two great drivers and two great cars, the McLaren of Hamilton and the Red Bull Racing of Mark Webber. The Englishman after making the third stop began to assert the ruthless rule of the best driver on the fastest car. Within a few kilometers he devoured everything: space, time and opponents, erasing from his horizon the car of Massa, Rosberg and Vettel, and putting himself arrogantly at the helm of the leading group up to the checkered flag. Significant was the beginning of the Hamilton climb: an overtaking to the detriment of team-mate Jenson Button, carried out with the typical ignorance of the great rider, perhaps also making a little leverage on the well-known common sense of his colleague who preferred to succumb rather than risk the accident. Obviously, and a bit symbolic, the last overtaking, the one on Vettel. The German, together with the Ferrari pair - even if, compared to them, with a few more reasons - had opted for a two-stop strategy and at the time of the attack he found himself with dead tyres. Perhaps more beautiful, though less profitable in terms of points, the final race of Mark Webber, started 18th and finished third. The Australian had a bit of luck with the timing of the tyre changes (he too, as Hamilton had chosen the three stops). But it was exceptional. He drove with the rage and precision of a champion, making the most of his beautiful car. After a tough Saturday, there was a great reaction and considering that the gap in the standings is substantial but not huge, it can be considered back in the game. Speaking instead of the winner, it must be said that everyone wondered, for some time. Who will be able to stop Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull Racing? Who will save the World Championship from the boredom of a season with obvious outcome? The answer came from Shanghai, from this black boy with the round and empty gaze of sharks and a beard, thin thin along the chin, decidedly ridiculous.
"I’ll take care of it".
Lewis Hamilton enters the FIA press room, sits in the Grand Prix winner's chair, looks at the audience and sighs.
"It’s been a long time since I sat here…".
Since 29 August 2010, in Belgium.
"When you don’t win for a while, even a few months seem like an eternity. I didn’t remember that feeling anymore".
What's it like?
"Definitely beautiful. Especially when I think this morning, six minutes to go, I had the car that wouldn't start. We tried and tried but nothing. The mechanics were trying to figure out what had happened and I didn't know what to do. Luckily I stayed calm and focused. The mechanics sent me to the track with the car half disassembled, thirty seconds from the time limit, then they put it back on the grid".
A miracle.
"Something like that, but it’s not the first one they do this year. After the last tests in Barcelona we had an aerodynamic package that didn't work and the reliability of the car was a disaster. The kids got to work and in a couple of weeks they put together the car you saw today. I couldn't believe they'd made it to Melbourne in time. And instead…".
Some of his colleagues have complained that there is little understanding of what is going on in the race. What do you think?
"It's actually not very clear: I understand that you can struggle a bit. But for me, Formula 1 is a lot of fun. I like to fight with a lot of opponents in different conditions".
Tell the truth, it sounds like the anti-Red Bull.
"We have to see. They're so fast. We're almost there on the pitch. But in qualifying, which is pure performance, no. There's still a lot to do. But we're working on it. Day and night, with heart and brain. But until we reach them we must continue to do as we do today, make no mistakes and be better than them in everything".
To fully understand the moment of confusion that Ferrari is going through after the third consecutive defeat, it is enough to browse through the archive and dig up phrases like these.
"First we went from a wind tunnel with a 1.5 scale model to a 1.6 scale model. This should ensure better correspondence between what comes out of the tunnel and the track. In the season just past (2010, ed) many developments promised so much, and then they did not pay off".
It was November 2010, when these words were spoken. Alonso had just lost the World Championship in Abu Dhabi, and Stefano Domenicali and Aldo Costa, team principal and head of the designers, thought they had figured out what to do to give the fans, and above all in Montezemolo, a strong Ferrari right from the start: on the wind tunnel, which in limited tests regime, is the key point of the car's design. And yet, it is only now discovered, in Maranello it worked poorly throughout the winter without anyone noticing, finally creating a theoretically very fast car, but slow on the track. Something went wrong in the transition from the theoretical upgrading of the wind tunnel viciously designed in the shape of a piston by Renzo Piano in 1997, to its practical implementation. And history began to flow in exactly the opposite direction to plans and dreams. It is not yet clear where the problem has occurred, nor would Ferrari be happy to report it. The mocking aspect is that the suspects are focusing on something that happened during the famous scale change (from 1.5 to 1.6), or alternatively on the set of Pirelli tires (in 1.6 scale also those) provided by the Italian company and used for the various tests. But there are no certainties. In the next few hours we will try to understand, hopefully the fault will be of recoverable size, because certainly an F1 team can not be without its own wind tunnel for too long. In the meantime, however, with the Turkish Grand Prix approaching, the aerodynamics will do everything to bring some substantial innovation, as requested by Alonso (“The others have improved, we are always the same”) and by Montezemolo in the afternoon (“This cannot be the level of Scuderia Ferrari, it is a very delicate moment, we need a reaction in the short term”). To do so, they will make use of another wind tunnel used sporadically in recent months by Ferrari, the Cologne tunnel, owned by Toyota. The same one used by the McLaren (and therefore, forgive the joke, works fine). And it is precisely connected to McLaren the historical precedent to which, at these hours, many in Maranello are clinging. In 2009, the Woking team made a wrong car exactly as Ferrari did this year, due to the wrong calibration of the wind tunnel. After having struggled for the first two months, once identified and solved the problem, the British team took off, ending the season with the car which was a torpedo. What Ferrari prefer not to consider at this difficult time is that that year, Hamilton's McLaren came fifth, behind the Brawn GP. And Red Bull Racing. On Friday, after practice, Ferrari's chief engineer, Aldo Costa, said:
"We use less tyres than others".
On the same day, a few minutes earlier, Fernando Alonso had told reporters:
"The problem is that we use more tyres than anyone else".
On Sunday evening, after the race, Stefano Domenicali, speaking about the discussed two-stop strategy, explains:
"We used up more tyres than we expected. Fourteen points are certainly not what we wanted in this Grand Prix. We are disappointed, there is no need to deny it. We have to analyse the progress of this race and understand why, after having been competitive, especially with Felipe, up to about two thirds of the race we saw the others finish the race more competitively than us. From a strategic point of view, I don't think it would have changed much if we had made three stops instead of two. Felipe had a great race and fought to the last for a podium finish, reaching 15 seconds behind the winner, while Fernando's race was affected by the duel with Schumacher after the first pit stop. This championship did not start the way we wanted and hoped. Our car absolutely needs to improve in terms of performance, especially in qualifying. We have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks, especially on aerodynamics. We are aware that our problems cannot be solved with a magic wand in one swoop".
That's it. The episode, perhaps, will not explain exhaustively the meaning of yet another disappointing performance of Maranello's cars.
But it describes the moment we are living in Ferrari well: it is pitch black, everyone speaks and everyone contradicts each other and nobody says anything convincing or definitive, and in the end nobody seems to know exactly what is going on. Sunday afternoon, after the race it went more or less the same way. Fernando Alonso takes off his helmet and gloves, goes to the press conference and explains:
"I am very disappointed. The car is slow, even in the race, not only in qualifying. And I don’t think that if we had done a different strategy from what we did, things would have gone any better".
Five minutes pass and Felipe Massa arrives:
"I’m very happy with how it went. I'd say, apart from the result, it was a perfect weekend. The car has a very good race pace, at the level of the first, I passed Hamilton and I played it with Vettel".
Shortly before on TV he had completed the work of demolishing Alonso's thought, explaining that the others had the right strategy. The feeling, basically, is that, despite the extraordinary efforts of Stefano Domenicali, something between confusion and panic is spreading in the team. Especially now that the causes of the debacle are becoming clearer. To put it bluntly: the wind tunnel, the one inside which, for the whole winter technicians and engineers built and tested and perfected the F150th Italia, was malfunctioning. She was out of order. For this reason, the results of the track, from Barcelona onwards, were different from those predicted by the simulation models. It was Stefano Domenicali who explained it. In Malaysia, the main team had given the Shanghai race as a dead line to understand the origin of the team's problems. Now draw up the sums.
"We are completing the analytical phase and from what we understand there have been some technical issues, with the wind tunnel, with the transition from 1:50 to 1:60 scale and with the upgrades of other devices".
How this could have happened and why it took almost two months to realise this is another matter, but sooner or later we will have to deal with it.
"Now we have to move on to the construction phase. We are running for cover, I think we have found the right path and we will already see important steps forward from Istanbul. I'm not saying I expect to overtake McLaren and Red Bull, for Christ's sake, but to get closer to them".
Everyone hopes so, first of all Alonso who seemed rather annoyed by the turn that is taking his second year in red:
"Aerodynamics is our main problem. In Malaysia we saw some encouraging signs, but here it wasn’t: the car is the same while others have moved forward".
As if that wasn't enough, Felipe Massa in February didn't think he was so far behind at the start of the season. The Brazilian scored only 24 points in the first three Grand Prix, against 68 points for Sebastian Vettel and 47 points for Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari is way behind Red Bull Racing and McLaren, and this has pushed the Brazilian and his team-mate Alonso to always race on the defensive. Not to mention the team strategies that for three years have been characterizing in a negative way the championships of the Maranello team. Now the Circus will meet in three weeks' time in Istanbul, Turkey, where Massa hopes to regain a more competitive single-seater.
"The sixth place in China is not bad. Now we have three weeks to push it to the max. I did a great race, characterized by a good pace and many duels. The final result could have been better than sixth place but I'm happy with the way things went and I hope to continue to fight at an even higher level in the next races".
Says the Brazilian, who stayed in Shanghai for the opening of the auto show:
"We definitely have to try to qualify better so we can start ahead: even if the grid positions are not so decisive anymore, it always helps to be in the front rows. The F150th Italia seen on Sunday was a car with a very different performance compared to that of qualifying. I even managed to be in the lead, even if for a few laps and stayed in second place for a while. Unfortunately, those who had opted for the three stops found themselves stronger than we expected in the final stages, with tyres that were in better condition than ours and thus managed to overtake us".
Immediately after the race, Massa criticized the strategy.
"In hindsight it's easy to say I could have made three stops myself, but I'm not sure it would have been the right choice.Our main problem was that I had a much worse performance with the Pirelli Hard tyres than with the Soft tyres: when we fitted them, it looked like the car was back in qualifying and, of course, we had more problems. Up to that moment, the F150th Italia had been competitive. It was said that Webber (who climbed up with Red Bull from P18 to P3, ed.) had a fantastic race, over three stops, but it should be remembered that, having been eliminated in Q1, he had many trains of new tyres: anyone would have wanted to be in his condition and if we add the fact that he has the best car of the moment, the picture is complete".
Now the World Championship moves to Europe.
"We're at a stage of the championship where you have to study how the races are going and look at every detail to see if we need to take a different approach, maybe keeping new tyres for the race. However, after only three races, it is still too early to say what is the best way to work with these new rules. Now there are three weeks in which all of us at Ferrari have to push as hard as we can to get to the next race or, better, to the next qualifying, in a stronger position so that we can continue to fight with the best. After Shanghai, we must also count Mercedes among the top teams: they have a faster car than ours in qualifying, although not yet as good as Red Bull. It's also true that Red Bull seems to be suffering more from the transition from qualifying to the race, which could allow Mercedes to be competitive on Sunday afternoon".
At the same time, McLaren was reborn in China. Lewis Hamilton enjoys the new life of his single-seater which, from a slow car in winter tests, has become the only real opponent of the Red Bull Racing in the early stages of the season. In the Chinese Grand Prix came the first win of the season. Lewis Hamilton triumphed in Shanghai and now, with 47 points, is behind Sebastian Vettel.
"The win in China was great because we made everything work on the track. It's even better to win when overtaking: in the last stage of the race I passed Nico, Felipe and Sebastian to win. I hope the fans had fun too. The win is also a reason for satisfaction because we have adopted the right strategy from the moment we arrived on the track on Thursday. We didn't just have a good car and a good strategy. We were aggressive and pushed the whole race. The mechanics were perfect, the engineers were absolutely brilliant".
Prior to the start of the Grand Prix in China, a fuel spill called into question Hamilton’s participation in the race. The problem has been solved in extremis:
"It was a special moment: other times we had a problem or we had left the pits late. But never at such a crucial time. I heard on the radio that there was a problem with the engine start, I was trying to stay calm. I was stuck in the cockpit. I couldn't help. Engineer Andy Latham did an excellent job of keeping me fit and calm. And Philip Prew kept an eye on the stopwatch to make sure we were on the grid. In the end, we made it. The experience made the difference: I think the team is the best in the world, I want to thank everyone".
The victory was crucial for the morale of the team.
"We needed this win. If you think about the last few weeks, this team has done something amazing. Turn the car upside down and turn it into a winning car: we've never done anything like this in such a short time. I take my hat off to the factory boys: they've done miracles, but we can't stop. We still have a lot of work to do to keep up with Red Bull. I don't want to be misunderstood, what we did is incredible. But we need to present ourselves at the Turkish Grand Prix with more news and further improvements if we want to continue to fight at the top. And we know the others won't sit idly by either. We have to prepare for Istanbul, this is just the beginning of the battle".