iSport F1 Pitstop: iSporter Maharshi Vaishnav was disappointed with Ferrari’s performance in China. He does a post mortem on iSport.
The inclusion of the F-Duct promised to revive Ferrari’s fortunes at the Chinese GP. They were clearly off the pace and had to resolve their ‘lack of pace’ grievances. The F-Duct did provide some succor when Fernando Alonso qualified 3rd and Felipe Massa 7th with their race heavy fuel loads.
But my joy was pretty short-lived. The rain soaked Chinese GP over the weekend clearly demonstrated what Ferrari’s been missing in the post-Schumi / Todt / Brawn era.
Ferrari took home 14 points from the Chinese GP thanks largely to a 4th for Fernando and 9th for Massa. They are now trailing McLaren by 19 points and Massa who was leading the Drivers Championship till Sunday finds himself back in 6th. Alonso is also in a not so great 3rd.
Ferrari’s race from the very start looked sort of scourged. Alonso jump started for the first time in his career and was penalized with a drive thru. Massa too took time to get away from the slow mid-grid cars. Although, Ferrari could have recovered easily because of rains with some astute choices, but a few poor calls ensured that they didn’t emerge as winners.
Now, we all know that the race turns into a lottery when it rains. It would be unfair on my part to blame the team solely for this. But then, their lack of strategy and application was appallingly evident. Whatever McLaren or Mercedes did wasn’t out of the box. It was informed calls based on some quick weather calculations and track positions. So Domenicalli and team missing out on this was baffling.
To top it up, the squabble between Alonso & Massa going into pits was uncalled for and shabby. While both of them insist that there isn’t any bad blood between them, this definitely doesn’t befit a Ferrari driver.
Alonso had mixed sentiments when he said, “In a race like this, anything can happen. We did 5 pit stops to change tyres, which is definitely unusual. I made a serious mistake at the start as my reflexes let me down and I left early. It’s never happened to me before and I am very disappointed with myself. Luckily, despite the penalty, I managed to finish fourth.”
Massa, visibly distraught lamented, “This was a very complicated race and clearly I can’t be happy with the result. Of course, 2 points are better than nothing, but in the upcoming races we have to do better and that means working on the development of the car.”
It is easy to compare the Chinese GP bloopers with the glory days of Ferrari and condemn them. Chaos is growing and hope a return to Europe will allay the fears of the season slipping out of their grasp.
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