Ferrari vow to be “a good step faster” in Canada

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

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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

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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32 comments on “Ferrari vow to be “a good step faster” in Canada”

  1. Their PR media must be brilliant. They really did find a few thousand ways to say the same for the past five years.

    1. What else are they going to say? ‘The car’s **** and will still be **** at the next race’?

      1. 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.

        1. I don’t see a vow or a promise anywhere in Ferrari’s quotes.

          1. 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.

        2. It’s what Allison just said. Too easy to read the headline and add a comment…

          1. 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”.

          2. @mattds

            Grasping at straws, aren’t we?

          3. @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.

  2. 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.

  3. Ferrari to improve in Canada China India 2013 Monza 2013 2013 late 2012 early 2012 2012 now that blown diffusers are banned in 2011 after firing the only guy that lost them the 2010 championship 2010 late 2009

    As a tifosi, my heart is bleeding. As someone who can read right through stale PR statements, my head is hurting..

    1. 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!

      1. 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…

  4. They need to come up with 50 bhp out of somewhere to be any faster in Canada.

    1. 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

      1. and start the cycle again starting next year

        1. Hopefully, some year the cycle stops and they will get it right.

          Probably a few years after they’ve re introduced in season testing.

  5. 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.

    1. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

    I expect the competitors to make at least equal progress :(

  8. 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,

    1. 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.

      1. 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.

    2. 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!

      1. 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!

    3. If Alonso would get the same points as Kimi did, Massa would still be on the team.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. For all you doubting Ferrari’s prospects in Canada, here is a quote from James Allison from an Autosport article of May 23, 2014:

    “As time goes by on the dynos, you learn exactly where you can exploit the performance more, and that brings you confidence to bring new settings at the track that deliver actual horsepower to the wheels.

    “That happens continuously and we do have a step in that direction coming in Canada.”

    I remain optimistic :)

  12. 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.

    1. 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.

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