Malaysian Grand Prix 2012 - Sepang - Qualifying

[ClaudiuCojo]

then fire dominicalli...let us not waste next year too..
let us build for next year with someone else in the helm..

Domenicalli has nothing to do with the car and more to the point, the slow aero performance of the car, the problems are the designers and maybe the design tools we are using.

I think if you want to blame someone, blame Tombazis, he is the head aero guy at Ferrari, he was reponsable with the aero of the car.

[scuderiafan]

Ferrari and RedBull are in the same situation right now. Their exhausts are not working as expected, and so a lack of rear df, then they have to put more wing on, increasing drag.
This is the closest season I have seen for a while. Not even 2008 was this close between the top teams. So it is the wrong time to mess up, but rb have it to a lesser extent, because they are still running their solution they plan on getting working and Ferrari still have not fully implemented either of their solutions, along with the fact that there is a steep learning curve for them. I think both teams when they get the exhausts sorted will hunt McLaren.

[ClaudiuCojo]

Anyway, blaming just makes you feel better and hides the real problem, and blaming will not gonna make us 1s faster per lap.

[Red_Diamond]

The improvements will come, it's only been a week between Australia and Malaysia. can't believe some are still getting hysterical.

with a working KERS, Fernando would have been under a second to pole, which is not bad considering. Little improvements will mean big jumps, the field is a lot closer together this year.

[Red_Diamond]

Ferrari and RedBull are in the same situation right now. Their exhausts are not working as expected, and so a lack of rear df, then they have to put more wing on, increasing drag.
This is the closest season I have seen for a while. Not even 2008 was this close between the top teams. So it is the wrong time to mess up, but rb have it to a lesser extent, because they are still running their solution they plan on getting working and Ferrari still have not fully implemented either of their solutions, along with the fact that there is a steep learning curve for them. I think both teams when they get the exhausts sorted will hunt McLaren.

+1

[Cemz85]

well, vettel starting on PRIMES is a gamble.. If the race starts WET they then dont need to use both compounds.. So that stratagie down the drain..
Hope Shumacher get p1 after turn 1 to stall the Mclarens for a couple of laps atleast.
The question is, do we hope it rains or not? we maybe can take on merc and lotus in dry conditions.. so thats at best P5..
If it rains its an open ball park, but then maybe we cant take on the lotus or merc and anything can happen.
Id rather take P5 (dry)i think.. But who knows. This is F1 afterall

[mark p]

Yeah I don't think it would have changed position, but Kers maybe would have brought 0.5s, so being 0.8-0.7s back isn't too bad, and is an improvement. Long straight, good for fast starting Ferraris, and good long run pace yesterday, remember?

In a normal race on pure pace ì think 5th as absolute best. I think its the actual relevent performance we need to analyse even if hope beyond hope problems for others put us even higher.

[Omegablue]

Why is Alonso now blamed for the car's design?

In the 30 years in supporting Ferrari, I've never come across such stupidity.

[Cemz85]

4 tenths cover the top 8.. boy this season is close..
if we had kers we would have done 1.37.000, 8 tenths slower than pole, 4 tenths off p6 on a long track like sepang.. Not that bad guys..

[Grillo]

No working KERS? OMG!!!

Is it fixable for the race?

[hogo]

Now Alonso won't have extra set of new tires so I wonder how he will do till 1st pit stops. He was superb in Australia but he was on new set of tires while all drivers ahead of him had used sets...

The improvements will come, it's only been a week between Australia and Malaysia. can't believe some are still getting hysterical.

Well Melbourne has sort of a weird race track so we hoped that in a proper race track like one in Malaysia, we can do much better. But it seems we can't...

[Hornet]

the standards with us is always higher then other teams.at ferrari you got to win titles, even competing isnt enough.
what dominicalli & co doing would be acceptable at sauber..not with us..

You're right, Ferrari is a top team, and we can never be satisfied until we start winning again.

But the question of who is the best for this and that position is a very difficult one to answer. No doubt, these individuals play a direct role in making or breaking the team's success. So one can only hope that the top leader of the team makes the right choice in choosing who should be in the team. And I think it takes a lot of experiences to know how to make that decision, although there's no 100% surefire way to make the perfect decision. Its always a gamble when you bring someone into the team.

So for me, I trust in Luca d Montezemolo which have proven that he's a capable leader of Ferrari. Did you know that not only did Montezemolo revived the Ferrari F1 racing team from decades of tough years after years, he actually brought Ferrari road car business up to where it is now, from mounting debts back to its glory name.

So Luca knows what he's doing. He knows what's best for Ferrari. If he believe Stefano has enough time to prove himself and still fails to deliver, he will not be afraid of showing Stefano the door.

[Cemz85]

Now Alonso won't have extra set of new tires so I wonder how he will do till 1st pit stops. He was superb in Australia but he was on new set of tires while all drivers ahead of him had used sets...

tires wont matter is it wet

[Gerhard Berger]

Domenicalli has nothing to do with the car and more to the point, the slow aero performance of the car, the problems are the designers and maybe the design tools we are using.

I think if you want to blame someone, blame Tombazis, he is the head aero guy at Ferrari, he was reponsable with the aero of the car.

It is Domenicalli's job to provide the best design tools.

Tombazis is not head of aero, he's chief designer. Hennel is head of aero. Both these guys have great track records. It's highly unlikely that they've suddenly forgot how to design a good car.

[Jose-Lorca Fan]

That was some pretty decent qualifying from Ferrari. Massa did well to be only a few tenths behind Alonso in Q2 but sadly that wasn't enough. As for the race i'm pretty optimistic, hopefully Fernando can push on and and get us a few points. Upfront it looks like tight but i think the race will tell a different story...
On a side note, i do miss the times when Ferrari were fighting for positions on the front row...

[Jose-Lorca Fan]

Is it me or are all Ferrari engine teams lacking in performance?

[F2002]

We don't have a new chassis

Felipe does.

Here's one of many references:
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/230320...ls-better.html

I didn't mean new in the sense that it's a B-spec.....

[F2002]

@InsideFerrari "Considering the situation, Felipe did a reasonable job today."

Are you sure this isn't HRT's feed ?

What reasonable job? - he's 12th!!!

[elekvault]

can someone tell me where the IGNORE function is please !!

Click on the name of the person to see his/her profile, then click on "Add to ignore list". It will ask for confirmation, and you're done!

[Cemz85]

Is it me or are all Ferrari engine teams lacking in performance?

no, i think torro rosso had pretty good top speed in practice sessions..
Its NO WAY and engine thing!. More like drag or something

[Red is Best]

Man are those qualifying sessions hard to watch. I don't want to believe it but I think our chances for the championship are already gone. There is no way we will be able to close the gap while the other teams continue to develop their car. We will always be one step behind.
Anyway, let's hope Fernando can once again outperform that poor excuse of a car to give us something to watch tomorrow.

[Omegablue]

You're right, Ferrari is a top team, and we can never be satisfied until we start winning again.

But the question of who is the best for this and that position is a very difficult one to answer. No doubt, these individuals play a direct role in making or breaking the team's success. So one can only hope that the top leader of the team makes the right choice in choosing who should be in the team. And I think it takes a lot of experiences to know how to make that decision, although there's no 100% surefire way to make the perfect decision. Its always a gamble when you bring someone into the team.

So for me, I trust in Luca d Montezemolo which have proven that he's a capable leader of Ferrari. Did you know that not only did Montezemolo revived the Ferrari F1 racing team from decades of tough years after years, he actually brought Ferrari road car business up to where it is now, from mounting debts back to its glory name.

So Luca knows what he's doing. He knows what's best for Ferrari. If he believe Stefano has enough time to prove himself and still fails to deliver, he will not be afraid of showing Stefano the door.

Lets not forget that Luca also revived Ferrari in the 70's at his first period with the team. He was part of the team that started the Lauda era.

[Omegablue]

It is Domenicalli's job to provide the best design tools.

Tombazis is not head of aero, he's chief designer. Hennel is head of aero. Both these guys have great track records. It's highly unlikely that they've suddenly forgot how to design a good car.

Reality is that the other teams just did a better job.

[Alonsomaniac]

I keep being mocked here. Like there are positives to look for..


Ferrari is the team with most driver championships, most races, most contructors title, most wins, most podiums, most poles..

we have winning mentality...go feel happy with mediocre alonso, massa, dominicalli taking us to trash..

Thank you, thank you! At least one thing to make us laugh today!

[Red passion]

Wow schumi

Gooooooooo Schumi

[ducksick_ang]

well, vettel starting on PRIMES is a gamble.. If the race starts WET they then dont need to use both compounds.. So that stratagie down the drain..
Hope Shumacher get p1 after turn 1 to stall the Mclarens for a couple of laps atleast.
The question is, do we hope it rains or not? we maybe can take on merc and lotus in dry conditions.. so thats at best P5..
If it rains its an open ball park, but then maybe we cant take on the lotus or merc and anything can happen.
Id rather take P5 (dry)i think.. But who knows. This is F1 afterall

MS has new gearbox... so 5 places penalty ya. So it is impossible to be P1 at start of the race.... If am not mistaken.

[Cemz85]

MS has new gearbox... so 5 places penalty ya

I think only KR as a penalty

[2FastWenFurious]

For a race track that has lots of straights and less corners, we can even overtaken by the hrt's. I just hope Its not...

[Italian Spirit]

ever heard of Ross Brawn dude?

Ross who? You mean the guy at Mercedes that found (again...) a technical loophole?
Shall we take your post at the second (or third, or fourth) degree or are you serious?
But maybe we could do a deal with Merc, they give us back Aldo and we give them Pat.

[Greig]

The temperature and tension are both rising at the Sepang circuit outside Kuala Lumpur, as the second round of the world championship is now only one day away. Today’s qualifying session had plenty of excitement and more importantly for Scuderia Ferrari, demonstrated a slight improvement in the performance of the F2012. When one is competing against equally resourceful teams, also striving to move forward then, for that improvement to be visible proves it is a true step in he right direction. All things are relative and a slightly better F2012 translates into ninth and twelfth on the time sheet as opposed to twelfth and sixteenth in Albert Park last Saturday. Once again it was Fernando Alonso who was quickest of the Prancing Horse drivers, but timewise, Felipe Massa is now closer to his Spanish team-mate.

Yet again, the grid made a refreshing change from the scenario we had got used to back in 2011. Just as in Melbourne, the front row was a McLaren lockout with Lewis Hamilton taking his second consecutive pole, with Jenson Button alongside him.The second row sees Michael Schumacher record his best ever grid position since making his F1 comeback at the start of last year. Alongside him is Mark Webber in the Red Bull. Fifth fastest was this year’s most famous returnee, Kimi Raikkonen. However, the Finn’s Lotus needed a gearbox change which has cost him a five place drop to tenth. Therefore the reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel will start from fifth and it’s worth noting he opted to contest Q3 on the harder Pirelli tyre. He has the other Lotus of Romain Grosjean alongside him. Fernando will therefore find himself on the outside of Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes. Felipe shares his row with the Williams of Pastor Maldonaldo.

So early in the season, predicting any sort of outcome for tomorrow is very difficult. The only certainty is that the Malaysian Grand Prix is always one of the toughest challenges of the year: if it’s dry then the heat is physically and mentally draining for drivers and team personnel alike, not forgetting the tyres that will degrade in dramatic fashion. If it rains, then it will be a case of choosing the right moment to switch from slicks to rain tyres and make the right call as to whether intermediates or extremes are required: an eye on the sky and another on the track are needed to second guess the rain gods and avoid making too many stops. If the rain eases off, then there’s the reverse problem of knowing when to risk the return to dry weather tyres. All in all it will be a physical game of chess and the two Ferrari knights on their black stallions will be hoping to make the right moves and score as many points as possible.

Stefano Domenicali: “We should regard this result as a glass half full. We know that we are in difficulty in this early part of the season, therefore we have to look at limiting the damage on track, while working to make the F2012 more competitive in as short a time as possible. All of us and our fans would like to see our drivers always in the fight for pole position, but if we do not have the potential to do so, then we have to do the best we can. Once again today, Fernando did a great job and it’s a shame that he had a KERS problem, the first in a long time, which prevented him from doing a much better time on a track where this system delivers a significant benefit. Felipe has made a step in the right direction: finally the car he had in qualifying was reasonably balanced and that could also be seen on the clock. Now we must concentrate on the race and try to bring home as many points as we can. We saw in Melbourne that over a long distance the difference between the front runners is less marked than in qualifying. Let’s see how tomorrow goes in a race that looks like being very tough on the cars, drivers and teams, who have to operate here in rather unique conditions.”

Fernando Alonso: “It was a good qualifying, because I think we got everything we could out of the car. I had a KERS problem on my only run in Q3, but I don’t think it cost me any places, but it would definitely have made the gap to pole look more realistic. If it was to rain, it will take a lot of luck to pinpoint the right moment to change tyres: it only takes a little to drop a dozen seconds or so and we will need total concentration to get everything right. A dry race will require just as much concentration to maximise the performance of the car and tyres which, at this track, degrade a lot. We must try and bring home points that could be significant for the championship. The start and the first corner will be complicated, because so much is at stake then. We know we have a lot of work to do, especially on the aerodynamics of the car. Here, the performance is slightly better than in Australia, which proves we are working in the right direction, but obviously we must move on in leaps and bounds if we want to fight for the front rows. A new car in Barcelona? No, there’s no truth in that. Clearly we are pushing a lot on car development, which is as it should be, but in a consistent fashion with no revolutionary changes. At the moment, this car has many problems, but as a result, it also has a big margin for improvement.”

Felipe Massa: “Clearly, I can’t be happy with twelfth place, but we know that, at the moment, we do not have a very competitive car: getting through to Q3 is very difficult and today I could only get close to this target. Yesterday and today in FP3, I was not satisfied with the balance of the car, but we managed to improve it for qualifying, which leaves me feeling confident for the race and for the future. I think we have begun to get a better understanding of how this F2012 works and that is positive. Tomorrow will be a very hard race, where tyre degradation will make itself felt and there will also be the threat of rain hanging over it. I hope I can get a better result than this twelfth place. Pressure? It comes from own will to always do the maximum and when I don’t manage it, I am the first to be unhappy.”

Pat Fry: “Honestly it’s hard to see how we could have secured a different result to this one, given the potential available to us. We had a KERS problem right in the final stages of the session, when Fernando set out for his last timed lap in Q3. That cost him a few tenths, but I don’t think that without it he would have got a different position on the grid. As usual, the Spanish driver squeezed every drop of performance out of the F2012. Felipe finally had a better balanced car and made good progress compared to the previous sessions and that was also down to the work the entire team tackled with him. We can expect a very tough race: the aim is to get both drivers home in the points. The start will be a very important moment, while tyre degradation will be one of the key factors and will have a significant effect on strategy. Then there’s the unknown factor relating to the weather: so far, the rain has only put in a brief appearance in FP3, but we are well aware that storms can arrive at any moment: we have to ensure we are ready to exploit every opportunity that might present itself.”