Ferrari ready to fight back

By the Scuderia Ferrari's own admission, the Chinese Grand Prix must be a turning point in its difficult start to the 2009 season. After the first two rounds held in Australia and Malaysia, the team has yet to record a single championship point; it is Ferrari's worst season start in over 15 years.

Following the Malaysian race, Team Principal Stefano Domenicali quickly saw the urgency in the current state of affairs: "Clearly we have to extricate ourselves from this situation."

Once back in Italy shortly thereafter, the mood was filled with tension during the race debrief held at Maranello HQ.

"I met some very angry people and I'm using an euphemism here," Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo stated after the meeting. "Angry with themselves, but very determined to react."

"The team remains united and I believe in them," he added.

Amid calls from management that every person within the team take responsibility for their role in the championship campaign, Ferrari has proceeded with a reshuffle in order to tackle the situation and turn their results around.

"The goal is to anticipate as much as possible the introduction of new technologies to reduce the performance gap as fast as possible," reads a Ferrari statement.

Technical Director Aldo Costa has been put in charge of the new task force. Team Manager Luca Baldiserri joins him in coordinating the work accomplished at the Maranello factory, while remaining in close contact with the data being recorded at the circuits. With Baldiserri staying in Italy, on-site activities will now be covered by Chief Track Engineer Chris Dyer.

The challenge Ferrari faces is not only of a technical nature however: strategic errors occurred as well. In Malaysia, a qualifying blunder saw Felipe Massa standing in the garage while the Q1 timer ran out, and come race day a bad tyre call ahead of the oncoming rain dropped Kimi Raikkonen several positions down the order.

Ferrari will be bringing a modified front wing to China as the team hopes to gain back some ground, and (depending on what happens at the FIA Court of Appeal hearing on Tuesday) team engineers will begin implementation work on a 'double-decker' diffuser design.

Along with Renault, BMW and Red Bull, Ferrari has appealed the race stewards' decisions to green-light the contested diffusers used by the Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams teams at the Australian and Malaysian races. Chief designer Nikolas Tombazis and design consultant Rory Byrne will represent Ferrari at the hearing.

The Court of Appeal's decision is expected to be known Wednesday. If it approves the controversial diffuser design, the seven other teams will enter a new type of race as they rush to redesign their own diffusers... and it is a sure bet that they have already begun to look into it.