The start to the new season has been a nightmare for defending champions Ferrari. After three races they have yet to score largely due to poor tactical decisions and reliability issues with the F60 challenger.The Italian team head to Bahrain last in the constructors’ championship and are, as yet, undecided whether to reintroduce KERS this weekend and the F60 remains unchanged with the team targeting a new aero package for the Spanish Grand Prix next month.
“We have endured a very difficult start to the season,” admitted Team Principal Stefano Domenicali. “We knew we would suffer in China and in all probability, we will be suffering again here this weekend.”
“After that, it is to be hoped that we will make a step forward as from the Spanish Grand Prix, even allowing for the fact that we cannot expect those teams currently ahead of us to wait for us to catch up and they too will be developing their cars further,” Domenicali continued. “However, the most important point is that the entire team and everyone at Maranello, is working very hard to extricate itself from this situation as soon as possible.”
Domenicali went on to point out that there are still 252 points up for grabs over the remainder of the season and vowed that Ferrari would not ‘give up’ as they play catch-up to the front runners.
Felipe Massa ran in the points in China last Sunday before his F60 ground to a halt on the back straight.
“The electrical fault that forced me to stop at the side of the track was, once again, a failure we had never seen before,” Massa admitted and went on to describe the failure as ‘small and stupid’.
“I have always gone well at the Sakhir circuit, winning for the last two years, so I hope this is a good sign,” Massa continued. “In more practical terms, we tested here during the winter and the car was not too bad to be honest and the tyres seemed to suit the package we have.”
Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen is also enduring a tough start to the season and was out of the points last time out thanks to the team switching him to a one stop strategy. Like Massa, Raikkonen is keen to see the team run KERS this weekend in Bahrain but admits that the Italian team are unlikely to emerge victorious this year at Sakhir.
“The car’s set up was not bad, but we simply didn’t have enough downforce compared to the others,” he began. “Ferrari has won the races in the last two years here at the Sakhir circuit, but honestly I don’t think it’s possible this time,” the 2007 champion said. “If we manage to have a flawless weekend this time, we can gain points and maybe even a place on the podium.”
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