Ferrari wants to get off to a flying start

Talking at the unveiling of the Ferrari F150, Stefano Domenicali reckoned the Scuderia will have to start the season off on the right foot if it wants to fight for the championship.

Here are his thoughts:

Stefano, is it important to start well this year?

“Yes, it’s fundamental, also because if you don’t start gaining points immediately, you can’t recover them later. Naturally at the start there’s a higher possibility to make up for possible mistakes, but the points lost can’t be regained.”

One year ago you won at the start. This year, are you pointing towards the whole season or more towards the early stages?

“Honestly I don’t expect to see the real potential of our competitors in the first tests, but we’ll know more in Barcelona. Bahrain will be the first real test. Our strategy, which is a conservative approach, is to make it to the end and be ahead. To reach this objective the mobile rear wing has to be interpreted and used best possible, together with the KERS, where we had many problems in 2009, but we hope that we could solve them due to our experience. As far as aerodynamics is concerned I think that there will be less improvement as the season goes on, so we have to start well immediately.”

Ferrari has worked and is still working on limiting expenses and controlling them with the others.

“We want to monitor the expenses attentively, because when we enter a commitment we respect it. We were the first to accept a step back for the greater good of Formula 1 at an historical moment, when it was necessary. We invested in places close by, in Fiorano and in Mugello. But limiting costs can’t be something where the whole system gets stuck. Knowing that other teams really want to win, everything to be able to compete on the highest levels has to be done, respecting also non-motorsport commitments we’ve taken. We’ll monitor this and we all will talk about it together. “

Apart from the new regulations, how are you prepared as far as the tyres are concerned?

“The tyres are a fundamental issue. The new tyres are significantly different from the others, so there might be more pit stops and we have to understand how not to stress them too much. The first tests next week are very important to understand the tyres. I hope that it will rain for at least one day, because we don’t have any indication regarding the tyres’ behaviour on the wet, apart from the first data from the test Pirelli carried out under almost monsoon-like conditions. There are many unknown factors to consider.”

Which areas have been included in the cost monitoring?

“Those areas include the chassis, apart from the engine and the gearbox. Over the years we tried to set a limit regarding the expenses also as far as the number of people involved is concerned and the external expenses we have to cover every year. We lowered the expenses by about 30 to 40%, while we also reduced the number of people in the group working in the motorsport department.”