The Italian outfit started the season in disastrous fashion, with their 2012 contender, the Ferrari F2012, being off the pace. At the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona the team made a significant leap, with Fernando Alonso finishing the race in second behind Williams' Pastor Maldonado. However, the 2012 season has seen rivals McLaren and Red Bull Racing taking turns to progress rapidly.
“As we are still in the fight for the championship, we have to continue with the development of the car,” Ferrari's Chief Designer Nikolas Tombazis said.“And because we don’t currently enjoy an advantage, either in terms of performance or as far as the points situation is concerned, we cannot defend. We must attack and adopt an aggressive approach to car development for these four races, bringing updates to every one of them to close the gap and fight for the wins and hopefully bring home the titles.”
In recent races Ferrari have struggled, having brought upgrades to each Grand Prix which did not worked as expected. While currently using the ex-Toyota wind tunnel in Germany, Ferrari is carrying out a complete overhaul of its own wind tunnel in Italy. Tombazis believes this will be key in fighting for the Constructors and the Drivers titles next year.
“We have the good fortune that the rules remain basically stable for next year, which means we can carry on developing this year’s car without compromising the 2013 one,” the Ferrari man explains. “The work we do aerodynamically for this year’s car can be beneficial for both. We can work on improving the weak points on the current car which will help for next year, although the main structural elements of the 2013 car are already fixed: chassis, gearbox, mechanical layout, suspension and crash structures, with the car already in production. However, when it comes to its aero package, there is still plenty of work to do; as soon as we have completely wrapped up 2012 and these last four races, we will be concentrating 100 percent on the next one.”
Up until now, Ferrari has won three Grand Prix races, finished ten times on the podium, claimed two pole positions and three front row starts.
