Ferrari say they will make a significant step forwards with their car at the next race in Canada.
Technical director James Allison said the team will bring a significant upgrade for the race at the Circuit Gilleneuve in two weeks’ time.
“In Monaco, we continued to analyse the areas in which the F14 T can be improved,” he said, “and now we are looking ahead to the next race in Canada, where the package we will use there is a good step faster than the car we raced last weekend”.
However he cautioned that other teams may make gains of their own: “While our development programme has progressed well in recent weeks, it is hard to predict exactly what this will mean for the competitiveness of the F14 T, as we do not know what steps our competitors plan to bring to Montreal.”
“So any improvement has to be seen in relative terms, hoping that the track will deliver an answer worthy of all the efforts we have made so far.”
Ferrari are in third place after the first six races, behind Mercedes and Renault-powered Red Bull.
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Image © Ferrari/Ercole Colombo
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
26th May 2014, 21:15
Their PR media must be brilliant. They really did find a few thousand ways to say the same for the past five years.
Dave (@)
26th May 2014, 21:19
What else are they going to say? ‘The car’s **** and will still be **** at the next race’?
MattDS
26th May 2014, 21:41
Well they could stop “vowing” or “promising”. That doesn’t work. Much better to put the upgrades on and see if they’re faster. Given Ferrari’s history with lackluster wind tunnel correlation I’d hesitate to vow anything at this point.
Just say you have a new package, wind tunnel shows it to be faster and you’re hoping it will translate to track performance.
Robbie (@robbie)
26th May 2014, 21:55
I don’t see a vow or a promise anywhere in Ferrari’s quotes.
Psychotext (@textuality)
26th May 2014, 23:45
You’re right, there’s no promise that it’ll be faster, they’re stating it as fact that it’ll be faster.
I guess their best hope is that everyone else isn’t that much faster again.
palmerstoneroad (@palmerstoneroad)
27th May 2014, 11:18
It’s what Allison just said. Too easy to read the headline and add a comment…
MattDS (@mattds)
27th May 2014, 15:31
No, he did not just say that.
“The package we will use there is a good step faster than the car we raced last weekend”
vs
“We’re hoping, based on wind tunnel performance, that the package we will use there is a good step faster than the car we raced last weekend”
I’m sure you see the difference between “we hope” or “we think” than “it will be”.
Albert
27th May 2014, 16:49
@mattds
Grasping at straws, aren’t we?
MattDS (@mattds)
27th May 2014, 20:29
@Albert: no, we aren’t.
Or are you really going to deny Ferrari has been singing the same song for a few years now? “Next race we will be faster”. “No, it didn’t work, but next time around we will be better”. “Well no, this season didn’t turn out right, but next season we will be there!”. “Screw that, we have been having problems with wind tunnel correlation, but they’re solved now”. “OK, the wind tunnel correlation weren’t really solved, but NOW they are!”. “OK, the wind tunnel correlation is fine now but we’ll let our employees be more creative and then we will be there!”
They have been talking about next year/month/season/… for the past few seasons now and the above is once again just the same, saying that the car WILL be faster. I just think by now they should have learned and stop saying things “will” be such or so, rather use some caution when stating stuff.
If you really think this is grasping at straws, then feel free to explain why. There IS a clear difference between what I think they should say and what Allison has said. If you don’t see that difference, then that’s not my problem.
Atticus (@atticus-2)
26th May 2014, 21:30
Well, I was a tad surprised by Ferrari’s pace last weekend as well.
I mean they were comfortably the 3rd quickest team on a track which is just as packed with traction events as Sakhir is, albeit without the long straights, on which their lack of horsepower let them down in Bahrain.
Their top speed improvement in China was largely offset by the rivals by now, so if traction is OK-ish, they’ll need another improvement to top speed for the long straights of Montreal (which they’ll allegedly get) and they should be fine. Ish.
On the other hand, I’d not say any Canada upgrade would make a lasting improvement considering the medium-downforce nature of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Nick (@npf1)
26th May 2014, 22:03
Ferrari to improve in Canada
ChinaIndia 2013Monza 20132013late 2012early 20122012now that blown diffusers are banned in 2011after firing the only guy that lost them the 2010 championship2010late 2009As a tifosi, my heart is bleeding. As someone who can read right through stale PR statements, my head is hurting..
BasCB (@bascb)
26th May 2014, 22:27
I feel your pain @npf1, such a shame they can’t just dig deep, and then bring some parts that really make a difference on track.
By now, the best I expect of this is seeing interesting jokes about it!
Palle (@palle)
27th May 2014, 22:41
I feel tempted to point the attention to Ferrari’s mother company and the naming of this years race car and conclude something, but I can see that @npf1 is hurting already. Others are also having a hard time this season: McLaren isn’t doing any better, on the contrary, whereas RBR is improving, sort of…
Breno (@austus)
27th May 2014, 0:28
They need to come up with 50 bhp out of somewhere to be any faster in Canada.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2014, 6:13
And 10kmph more on the straights… more downforce on high speed corners… make the car’s rear end a little more stable… improve traction marginally…improve tyre performance.
I think Ferrari should start one step at a time… maybe tackling straight line speed 1st for Canada.. and use the rest of the season as a test session to fix the rest
hzh (@hzh00)
27th May 2014, 17:21
and start the cycle again starting next year
Todfod (@todfod)
28th May 2014, 15:00
Hopefully, some year the cycle stops and they will get it right.
Probably a few years after they’ve re introduced in season testing.
Slava (@)
27th May 2014, 10:02
Lie, lie, lie some more. They will not improve.
Unfortunately, I saw their development work in Barcelona this year: absolutely nothing was done in 1 month and a half to be faster. They were slow, the car was undriveable.
In a stark contrast we may see what Red Bull have done. They had the least mileage on tests and yet in the very 1st race they were much faster than Fee-rrari. Now ‘drinking team’ is in solid 2nd place. And yet, they do not tell every week ‘We will improve’. They simply better their car.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
27th May 2014, 10:39
Exactly. Ferrari could definitely take a leaf out of Red Bull’s book as to how to improve a car, for in the regard they were unquestionably the stars of winter testing.
Fsoud (@udm7)
27th May 2014, 10:44
In fairness, Ferrari did manage to improve their car (or stay nearly as good as RB and McLaren) in 2010.
And managed to Improve the F2012 from arguably 6/7th fastest to 3rd fastest (miles behind McLaren and RB, but still)
Lets hope the alternative year development continues, atleast for now.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
27th May 2014, 10:48
I expect the competitors to make at least equal progress :(
Paul2013
27th May 2014, 12:31
Nice joke! Ferrari right now (if Alonso would get the same points as Kimi did) should be the 6th team of the championship instead of third.
Ferrari has 78 points (61 Alonso +17 Kimi) in case of Alonso having the same amount of point as kimi has (17) Ferrari would have just 34… that is their real position as a team 6th, behind MER, RDB, FOI, MCL and WLL,
Mercedes 240
Red Bull 99
Force India 67
McLaren 52
Williams 52
Ferrari 34 (now 78)
They should change the brand of team for FIAT, at least they will not damage their sales as well,
MaroonJack (@maroonjack)
27th May 2014, 13:54
Quite the opposite. Kimi had some unlucky races, but on pure pace he should be much closer to Alonso. They should have well over 100 points by now. That’s their real position as a team. They are at about the same level as Red Bull.
Imre (@f1mre)
27th May 2014, 14:33
They wish they were at the same level as Red Bull. Apart from China a Red Bull always finished(on track) ahead of both Ferraris.
azza
27th May 2014, 14:58
haha, as if you think f1 performance will actually hurt the sale of their road cars!!!! by your logic everyone will be going out to by the new red bull street machine…… (oh wait that doesn’t exists) and anyone that came afford a ferrari isn’t going to be bothered by AMG’s new offering. F1 isn’t about new cars, anyone that can afford one has already decided what they buy, f1 results aside!
Paul2013
28th May 2014, 8:14
of course it does not damage the sales, Ferrari participates on F1 just for fun! The same way Bridgestone did in the past or pirelli or Mercedes… al of them invest there just for charity!
Breno (@austus)
27th May 2014, 15:28
If Alonso would get the same points as Kimi did, Massa would still be on the team.
kpcart
27th May 2014, 15:35
it wont be surprising at all if they have a better result at Canada. they should finish ahead of redbull purely because of the straights, as Ferrari seems to at least be a bit quicker then redbull on the straights. I would not be surprised to see a Williams or force india foil Ferraris plans with there merc engines.
TMF (@)
27th May 2014, 16:54
might be true but so will be everybody else’s cars. Merc and RBR seem to have pretty full pipelines too and we are nearing the ETA for the promised Renault enhancements so imo, the pecking order will remain pretty much the same until the summer break.
SeaHorse (@seahorse)
27th May 2014, 18:13
For all you doubting Ferrari’s prospects in Canada, here is a quote from James Allison from an Autosport article of May 23, 2014:
I remain optimistic :)
Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
27th May 2014, 20:19
Once again, Ferrari appear to have the third/fourth fastest car which is also the most reliable of the top cars over the course of a season. They nearly got away with it in 2010 and 2012 thanks to Alonso delivering on a number of occasions but excluding those seasons they have had four wins since 2009.
Paul2013
28th May 2014, 8:10
The most reliable, ha ha, Alonso started the race at Monaco GP with problems and ended without brakes on the front right, really reliable, and do not ask kimi.