Ferrari news Spanish GP 2011

[scuderiafan]

Here we are with the Spanish Grand Prix just round the corner, a race that has a special feel about it for me. I will arrive in Barcelona tonight, because right from tomorrow morning I’ve got an appointment in my diary: attending the launch of the first ever Ferrari Store to be opened in Spain, in the heart of the Catalan capital, on one of the most important streets in the city, Paseo de Gracia. Felipe will be there, as will Marc who will be very much the main man given he is from Barcelona. Then it will be time to head off to the track for the usual Thursday jobs, most of them dealing with media work.

It’s always nice to race in Spain. I love the feeling of warmth one gets from the fans right from the very first free practice sessions. Day after day, you can see the grandstands fill with flags – the red of Ferrari and the azure blue of my compatriots from Asturias – and that is a special feeling for me. My win here in 2006 is still one of the best moments of my career and it would be a dream come true to do it again with Ferrari sooner or later.

I know that you all want to know if that might happen already this weekend, but I am not able to give you an answer to that. On paper, we do not yet have the potential to be in a straight fight for the win, with one team clearly the favourite in this regard. However, we know things can change quickly in our sport and, in Turkey, finally we managed to bring home a podium finish. The road is still long, but I believe we have at least started down it going in the right direction.

These past few days, the team has worked so hard in Maranello on developing the 150° Italia and in order to be as well prepared as possible for these two back to back races, given that next week will be back on track in Monaco. During the days I spent in the factory I could feel that everyone there really wants to fight back: the feeling is so strong you can almost touch it, whether you are speaking with people in meetings or as you walk around the Gestione Sportiva. Both Felipe and I have done so many kilometres in the simulator and we feel that the updates being introduced will see us make progress in terms of performance. Whether or not this will be enough to close the gap to the best, we will only find out over the weekend, because we cannot ignore the fact that the others have not been twiddling their thumbs. We will see who has been the cleverest in the development championship.

The Catalunya Circuit is one of the ones we know best because traditionally it is a favourite venue for winter testing. This year, we have already had two sessions there, one at the end of February and the other in early March.

This means we will all arrive there with a pretty good idea of what settings we will use as a baseline on the car to start the weekend, even if the conditions we will encounter will be very different, especially in terms of temperature.

It will be very important to run continuously in Friday’s two free practice sessions to fine tune the car and check out the behaviour of the new technical components. It will also be vital to study the performance and wear of the tyres. In the race simulations we did during testing we saw significant degradation, especially on the front left tyre, which is put under major stress: we will see if, with different temperatures, that situation changes. Compared to previous races at this track I think we will see more overtaking, especially down to the difference in tyre performance that could be a factor during the race: further reason to come to the track to watch the Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. It would be nice to jump on the podium again and be able to salute all our fans from there: as far as me and the team are concerned, as usual, we will be giving it our very best shot.

http://www.ferrari.com/English/Scude...mpionship.aspx

[Rob]

Yet another step forward in performance terms
May 18, 2011 · Posted by Felipe Massa

I have had a busy few days since the Turkish Grand Prix, so time has gone by quickly and now I’m heading off to Barcelona for the fifth race of the season, which I hope will show more signs of the progress we had clearly made in Turkey. After a couple of days at home in Monaco, I headed for Rome where I attended a function for our partner Shell, after which I stayed in Italy spending three days at Maranello.

I had the usual race preparation meetings with the engineers, although much of the time was in the simulator, with it set up to replicate the Catalunya circuit where we will be racing this weekend. To be honest, from a driver’s point of view, the simulator is most valuable when you are using it to learn a new circuit, like we did last year for Korea and will do again for India, this year’s new venue. The work I was involved in this week was more for the benefit of the car, the 150° Italia, as I was testing the new updates we plan to use starting from Friday.

A session in the simulator is very much like a normal test at a race track: we start running at 9 in the morning until around 1, when we have a break for lunch, which we take in the simulator area itself and then we start again running from around 2.30 to 5 in the afternoon. After that, just like at the racetrack, I have a debrief with my engineers. Usually with the simulator, you start doing a run just to get acclimatised to it and then you start doing runs that last five or six timed laps. You can immediately see the results of what you are doing so, based on that, you decide what changes to make to the car and go out again. In one day in the simulator, you can try many more things than you could do at the track, because in the “virtual” environment, it is much quicker changing things on the car than at the track. Also, you don’t waste time in the simulator with “in” laps and “out” laps: for example at the Catalunya track on the simulator, you start the lap coming out of Turn 11 and then you can immediately begin your timed lap. When you press the button to finish, it’s like being back in the garage again. You talk to the engineers and anything you want changing on the car they can do almost immediately, or they can configure the car to test new updates or experiment with set-ups. The simulator is therefore much more time saving than testing for real.

Physically, a simulator session is much less tiring than driving the real car, because the G forces are less, but you are still driving, moving and working hard, but the physical effort required is far less. The best thing about the simulator? When you crash, nothing happens, absolutely nothing! Okay, you can feel something through the steering wheel but then the platform just stops and it’s over. When you first start using a simulator, you can find yourself going off line and even crashing but there is no harm done to you or the car.

Back in the real world, we have new parts we plan to use on the car in Spain and we are expecting to make yet another step forward in performance terms. We know how tough a time we had in the early part of the season, but hard work has seen us reduce the gap to the quickest cars and we plan to continue that way, especially in qualifying trim. If we make the car better for Saturday, we should also end up with an even more competitive car in the race on Sunday. I hope we are on the right road, because we now have Spain and Monaco just a few days apart and after that, we will have already completed six Grands Prix, or almost one third of the season. So it is a very important time for us and I have every confidence in the team that we can have a good Spanish weekend. The Spanish Grand Prix will be another interesting test of the effect of the new rules, with KERS and the DRS, although overtaking might not be quite as straightforward as in Turkey, as the main straight in Barcelona is not as long as the one at the Istanbul track. Of course, we have seen that tyre performance is possibly an even bigger feature than the KERS and DRS and from a driver’s point of view, it makes the racing quite interesting psychologically, as you have to deal with having a car that is really competitive for some laps and then finding your lap times dropping off and you are struggling to fight off the cars behind you. Then you fit new tyres and the whole situation changes again. It’s interesting for us and more importantly, very exciting for the race fans. Obviously, my team-mate will be the focus of most of the attention for his home race in Spain and Fernando’s arrival at Ferrari has made the Scuderia very popular with the Spanish race fans, so I hope we can both deliver a good result for them on Sunday.

http://www.ferrari.com/english/scude...nce-terms.aspx

[Rob]

looking forward to this weekends race.

Roll on FFP1 see what we have bought along to the table. Lets hope it gets up up front even further.

[scuderiafan]

he sounds confident

[Rob]

he sounds confident

yeah he does, which is great to read.

[Jose Lorca]

I can't wait until Friday. Clearly our boys know something (good) that we don't - maybe this update is worth more than we originally thought? I am confident we will do well. What are all your predictions for the weekend? Mine are:

Practice 1 - Alonso
Practice 2 - Alonso
Practice 3 - Alonso

Pole - Alonso
Win - Alonso
FL - Alonso
Grand Chelem - Alonso

107% - Karthikeyan, Hamilton

[F1NAC]

I can't wait until Friday. Clearly our boys know something (good) that we don't - maybe this update is worth more than we originally thought? I am confident we will do well. What are all your predictions for the weekend? Mine are:

Practice 1 - Alonso
Practice 2 - Alonso
Practice 3 - Alonso

Pole - Alonso
Win - Alonso
FL - Alonso
Grand Chelem - Alonso

107% - Karthikeyan, Hamilton

[REDARMYSOJA]

I hope they've developed the pit crew.

[tifoso SF]

I hope they've developed the pit crew.

indeed... I'm very hopeful on that as well.
we cannot afford to loose any second in the pits anymore.

[Stormsearcher]

he sounds confident

Yes he does. And thats a good sign. i think our team is quietly confident about something, not sure what that is. Either the upgrades we are bringing will at the very least bring us at par with the bulls... or maybe within striking distance of victory.

Waiting for the weekend to begin.

[Rishu]

107% - Karthikeyan, Hamilton

Why poor Karthikeyan? Hamilton needs no company

[NJB13]

107% - Karthikeyan, Hamilton

Why poor Karthikeyan? Hamilton needs no company

Agreed completely on the "Why Karthikeyan", but I beg to differ on the "Hamilton needs no company", I'd have thought Sebastian should be right there with Lewis to say to him "we are who are" - giving them both something to work out as they watch us stitch up our first 1-2 of the season.

[Rishu]

[EL NANO]

I believe the confidence comes from a new front wing RB style ;)

[sv_godspeed]

personally, i'd rather wait till sunday evening before feeling good...but fingers crossed!

[Rob]

Spanish GP - Massa: “I accept any change that is good for F1”5.19.2011

Montmelo, 19 May – It is fair to say that of the two Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro race drivers, Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard racing in Spain, is nearer the centre of the media focus than his team-mate this weekend. However, it seemed that the press who gathered at the Ferrari Media Hospitality this afternoon at the Catalunya circuit, had saved some of the toughest questions for the Brazilian.

On technical matters, he was asked for his views regarding the FIA decision to modify the rules regarding the exhaust blown diffuser, used by most of the top teams in some shape or form. “I’m not sure what this will mean, as it is difficult to say how this will affect the teams concerned and if it will affect some more than others, because I only know about my own team,” began the Brazilian. “At Ferrari, we are always working to find the best technical solutions within the existing rules. It is normal that if the FIA feels this direction is a bit too much then they will move to change the rule.”

Next, he was asked if the glut of overtaking in recent races is all down to the tyre performance and if therefore the Downforce Reduction Systems are unnecessary. “I don’t think the overtaking is just related to the tyres,” maintained Felipe. “It is related to the wing, the tyres and other elements, which all combine to make the racing more exciting this year. You see cars make a lot of passing moves, but then they can struggle towards the end of the race if their tyres are degrading, so that cars can move up and down the order. It’s down to the wing and tyres together and its more exciting for us drivers, as well as the spectators. If everyone is happy, then as a driver, I accept any change that is good for Formula 1.”

And on the day the Scuderia announced an extension to Fernando Alonso’s contract, Felipe was asked for his view. “I think it’s good for him, because signing for Ferrari is always a good emotion,” he said. “Renewing a contract for many years, for a long time, is positive and I congratulate him on it. As for myself, it is not yet contract renewal time and I am in no hurry, so we will wait for the right time as always and see what my long term future will be,” he added with a smile.

As for this weekend, as always, knowing what to expect before the cars have even started running on track is always difficult but the Ferrari man offered a prediction of sorts. “I expect a better result here than we have seen in the previous races so far this season. I hope we will see that all the work carried out in Maranello means the car will make a further step forward and allow us to fight for a podium finish here this weekend. But I am aware that time is passing, because after this weekend, the next time we will bring upgrades for the car will be Canada, and that means Race 7. So I really hope that we will continue to make progress.”

[Alessandra]

It used to be the rule that you didn't read anything much into Friday practice - I think it was Robert Kubica who said "I don't want to be the king of practice", but with no testing and a steady flow of up-dates for every team and car, that wouldn't seem to be quite the case now.
Interested in what Fernando said at the Thursday press conference re. the race, "the most important thing is how you approach the weekend and how you manage your tyres".

Sounds from the above as though both our drivers have a positive, calm but enthusiastic approach to this weekend. Maybe the settling of contracts has given them the freedom to concentrate on the essentials, cutting out both hype and sandbagging.

Quiet confidence seems to be the name of the game. Friday practice is going to be very interesting indeed

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - A result with little grip

Montmelo (Barcelona), 20 May – Mark Webber’s Red Bull was quickest in the second session of free practice for the Spanish Grand Prix that has just finished at the Catalan circuit of Montmelo, confirming his fastest lap from the first session in the morning. The Australian driver’s car came out on top (1.22.470) ahead of the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton (1.22.509) and the sister car of Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel (1.22.826). The 150° Italia of Fernando Alonso was fifth fastest having completed 34 laps with a best of 1.23.586, while the other Ferrari of Felipe Massa ended up eighth with 1.24.278 from 30 laps. Felipe had some balance problems and Fernando didn’t put in a clean lap on the soft tyres because of traffic on a first day that was complicated by very little grip on the track. Now the engineers will sift through all the data from the new parts that were tested today in preparation for the third and final session of free practice tomorrow at 11am.

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - A pre-season sort of day

Today’s free practice sessions were again very busy for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa completed a total of 119 laps, which equates to more than 500km, similar to a day of pre-season testing. There were so many new parts to test on the 150° Italia that the two drivers shared the workload. That was in addition to the usual Friday programme, based around finding the best set-up for the car and a comparison of the two tyre compounds provided by Pirelli.

Fernando Alonso: “We tried a lot of new things today and now we must extrapolate the information from all this work and select the best parts to put on the car for tomorrow. My first impression is favourable: I think we have made a step forward. It is always difficult to judge the gaps in free practice because there are always differences between one car and the next. I am certainly not surprised that the Red Bulls are still ahead of everyone: at the moment they are fastest and tracks like this one, or Budapest are particularly well suited to their characteristics. Having said that, while it’s true it might be difficult to beat them in qualifying, maybe in the race we can get closer, also to the McLarens and put them under pressure. We still have to work on the set-up: today we had too many things to test and we did not have time to make too many changes. I think the chances of fighting for a podium finish are even more likely here than they were in Turkey. The tyres? Pirelli has brought a new type of “hard” and it’s hard to imagine we can get through Q1 without having to resort to using the “softs.” One thing we had already seen in winter testing and which has been confirmed today is that degradation is pretty significant and so there is cause to expect a race like the one in Istanbul in terms of the number of pit stops.”

Felipe Massa: “That wasn’t an easy day for me. I had lots of problems getting the tyres to work, especially the hard compound, and I didn’t manage to put together a good time. That’s a pity because the new parts that we’ve brought here have improved our performance, even though the other teams remain very strong: there’s still a crucial gap to our main rivals. Now we must make the right choices to prepare as best we can for qualifying and the race. As for the tyres, I prefer not to go into details. Let’s say that there’s a lot of work to do in this area. When I went off the track I lost the rear and I ended up in the gravel: I passed very close to the barriers but fortunately I didn’t touch them so I managed to make it back onto the track without damage.”

Pat Fry: “A lot on the menu today this Friday in Montmelo and an initial reaction would be that first impressions are positive. We had a lot of new components to test: as always happens in these situations, some worked well, others less so and now it’s a case of putting together the jigsaw puzzle with the best pieces available. We also tried new aerodynamic concepts to assess how useful they might be. All in all, I think we have made progress in terms of performance, even if it is difficult to specify exactly if and by how much we have closed the gap to the quickest. The aim is to improve our performance in qualifying and also make progress in terms of our race pace, working down the same route we have taken for the past few races. It will not be easy to succeed but we are confident. Compared to what we saw in winter testing, even taking into account the fact temperatures are much higher now, tyre degradation seems very high: in fact I reckon the pit stop crew will have a lot of work to do on Sunday afternoon…”

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - Free practice and testing rolled into one

Montmelo, Barcelona 20 May - In the space of just three hours, divided into today’s two 90 minute free practice sessions, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro completed the sort of mileage normally achieved in a full day of pre-season testing. Even allowing for the fact that at test sessions, each team only uses one car, whereas here we had both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa in action, it is still a significant achievement.

The reason for all this intense activity is the big push on the development of the 150º Italia, which involved bringing the concrete results of all the theoretical work carried out back in Maranello in recent weeks for the real test at the race track. However, unlike a normal test session, here at the Catalunya circuit, the drivers and engineers cannot concentrate simply on the development work: instead they must do that while at the same time remembering they have a qualifying session to tackle tomorrow afternoon and a race the following day. Therefore all the usual Friday jobs, working on set-up and evaluating the Pirelli tyres also had to be squeezed into the very tight schedule. Fernando ended the day fifth fastest, while Felipe was eighth on the time sheet, the Brazilian surviving an off-track excursion without damaging his car.

It almost goes without saying that a Red Bull was fastest: this time it was the one driven by the 2010 Spanish GP winner, Mark Webber, while Lewis Hamilton was second quickest for McLaren. Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was third fastest ahead of Jenson Button in the other McLaren, while Nico Rosberg was sixth in the Mercedes behind Alonso. Tyre degradation was seen to be high during winter testing here in Montmelo and that has not changed with the increase in temperatures since then. Therefore it looks as though tyre strategy could again be the key, just as it was in Turkey, although that strategy needs to take the qualifying hour into consideration, not just the race, as drivers opt for the best compromise between setting a very fast lap time to get a good grid position and saving tyres for the race.

[hemanthjava]

Watch F1 Spanish Grand Prix 2011 Live Stream Online - Barcelona f1 GP here. The 2011 Spanish Grand Prix is a Formula One motor race that will be held on 22 May 2011 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain.

http://www.sportsbun.com/spanish-gra...a-1-online-f1/

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP – Results slow in coming

Montmelo (Barcelona,) 21 May – Once again Red Bull dominated the third and final free practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth round of the Formula 1 World Championship. Sebastian Vettel (1.21.707) and Mark Webber (1.21.791) were first and second quickest at the Catalunya circuit, ahead of Michael Schumacher (1.23.057) in the Mercedes. Unfortunately, despite working ceaselessly to improve, the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro performance is still a long way off matching the team’s expectations: Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa ended up ninth (1.24.270) and eleventh (1.24.322) respectively, getting through the work programme aimed at qualifying, which gets underway at 14h00.

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - A step forward

Montmelò, 21 May – Best qualifying of the year for Fernando Alonso, who secured fourth place on the grid for the Spanish GP. Today’s performance therefore put an end to the Spaniard’s subscription to the fifth place on the grid: tomorrow he starts one place further up the order. As for Felipe Massa, he starts from row four, having set the eighth fastest time.

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - One Spanish step forward

Montmelo, Barcelona, 21 May - Both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa believe that the updates introduced on the 150º Italia have delivered a small performance improvement. However, the fact that our Spanish driver finally managed to unlock the wheel-clamp that seemed to have left him permanently parked on the fifth place of the grid so far this season, had more to do with his own skills than the car. Even the man himself said he could not put into words the feeling he experienced on the perfect lap that secures him his best grid placing of the year, as he starts on the outside of row 2 in fourth spot. Team-mate Felipe Massa had a more difficult time, having struggled all weekend long when it comes to getting the balance right on his car and he set the eighth fastest time this afternoon.

So, was the intense development programme undertaken in Maranello for these past few weeks only worth one grid position? To put it in perspective, one has to remember that in Formula 1, just standing still sees your performance slide backwards, so although the Prancing Horse is galloping more vigorously than before, the other teams are also working on improvements.

Last year, the Red Bulls were completely dominant in Barcelona and that situation seems to be repeating itself, as 2010 winner Mark Webber took pole position ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel. Fernando, whose good qualifying performance should ensure even more Ferrari flags in the grandstands tomorrow, finds himself on the outside of third placed Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren. The third row sees Jenson Button fifth in the other McLaren ahead of Vitaly Petrov’s Renault and Felipe shares row four with Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes.

In all honesty, past Grands Prix at this track have occasionally been a bit dull and processional, because of the nature of the track and the difficulty in overtaking. However, the new rules have turned the old order on its head and, even if it might not reach the levels of Istanbul a fortnight ago, we can expect plenty of passing moves on Sunday afternoon. Much of that will be down to tyre degradation which will be significant, while the actual performance difference between the hard and soft Pirellis means that timing the very best lap on which to make the pit stop – three per driver is the most likely scenario – could make a difference of several places on the final result sheet. Starting from fourth, Fernando has to be aiming for another podium, while Felipe will be hoping for a strong points finish.

[Rob]

Spanish GP - Alonso phenomenal: a perfect lap delivers fourth place5.21.2011

The best qualifying result of the season for a 150º Italia courtesy of Fernando Alonso’s fourth place, while Felipe Massa set the eighth fastest time: that’s a quick summary of how qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix turned out for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro drivers. Both of them used the same number of sets of tyres: one prime and one option in Q1, one option each in the last two sessions.

Stefano Domenicali: “This sport never stops throwing up surprises! This morning we had the worst FP3 of the year, with both cars struggling a lot and then we find ourselves commenting on our best qualifying position. Certainly, this fourth place was down to an incredible performance from Fernando, who drove a simply stunning lap in Q3: it is further valediction, if one was ever needed, of why we have made the right choice in extending our relationship in the long term. Felipe was unable to find the right way to go in terms of set-up and he will start from the fourth row. So far this year we have seen that our race pace is better than it is in qualifying: let’s hope it continues like this and that tomorrow we will manage to bring home a good result. It would be important for the team and for all our fans, of whom there are so many here, mainly down to the presence of Fernando.”

Fernando Alonso: “I did a perfect lap: I reckon that if I tried to repeat it twenty times, I could not do better! When you do a lap like that it’s hard to put into words what one feels: always being on the limit, in every corner is a really special feeling for a driver. I am very happy with this result, because we have never made it to the second row this year. Sure, pole position is still a long way off: today, Red Bull was once again out of reach and we must work hard to try and get closer. This morning we ran some set-up changes on the car that did not produce the results we were expecting, also partly down to the conditions changing in terms of wind direction. We went back to what we had before for qualifying and instantly it was better. In general, we have made a step forward in performance terms, thanks to the updates we have brought here. So far, in the races we have gone better than in qualifying and so I think we can be in the fight for the podium. It will be tough at the start because the McLarens always get off the line well and then they have one more new set of soft tyres than we do.”

Felipe Massa: “This was definitely not the qualifying performance we were expecting, but all weekend long we have struggled with the balance of the car: we would have needed to be perfect to start a bit further up the order and that was not the case. Let’s hope that, on full tanks, the car works better and then we can see if we can get a good result. On a track like this it will not be easy to manage the tyres in the best way nor to find the best possible strategy. In Q2 we decided to stay in the garage, running the risk of not getting any further, because it would not have made much sense making the cut and then finding ourselves in Q3 without any new tyres: the outcome proved us right, even if we had hoped to make a better job of that opportunity. It is clear we suffer more than the others on the hard tyres. Overtaking? We will definitely see more than in the past at a circuit like this and that will mainly be down to tyre degradation.”

Pat Fry: “A great lap from Fernando who managed to put everything together perfectly without even the slightest mistake. He was brilliant and this position is mainly down to him. We tried to manage tyre use in qualifying as well as possible, without taking risks at the start of Q1, before staying in the garage in Q2 so as to have the chance of a strong hand in Q3 with a new set of option tyres. We introduced a lot of new parts here, but the others have done the same and it seems the gaps have not changed that much: we have to do even better to catch up with the best. A track like this favours cars that have a lot of aerodynamic downforce: that can be seen very clearly by analysing the best times in each sector. Our car is competitive in the first one, but we pay a very heavy price in the other two. That’s where we must improve. As for tomorrow’s race, a lot will depend on tyre life and on finding the right moment to change tyres. It will be a busy time in the pits and everyone will have to give it their best shot to be perfect and that includes the drivers.”

http://www.ferrari.com/English/Formu...rth_place.aspx

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - A bitter fifth place for Alonso the lion

Montmelo, 22 May – Fifth place for Fernando Alonso at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix, while Felipe Massa had to retire on lap 58 with an apparent gearbox problem. Fernando fought like a lion in the early stages, when after a fantastic start, he managed to lead the first 18 laps of the race. Then Fernando fought off Webber, but when the Australian passed him in the pit stops, there was a clear performance difference on the hard tyres. Fifth was the best he could do today.

Felipe defended his position on the soft, but he struggled even more than his team-mate with the hard tyres and was sliding out of the points places when he had to retire.

[scuderiafan]

Spanish GP - Alonso battles brilliantly in Barcelona, Felipe has to retire.

Montmelo, 22 May – Fernando Alonso thrilled the Spanish crowd with a fantastic demonstration of driving skill today at the Catalunya circuit, but in the end, the superior car performance of our two closest rivals meant he had to settle for fifth place. Felipe Massa had a difficult afternoon which came to a premature end, when he retired with a gearbox problem a few laps from the flag. Sebastian Vettel took his fourth win of the season and was joined on the podium by the two McLaren drivers; Lewis Hamilton second and Jenson Button third.

As the lights went out second placed Vettel was all over his pole starting team-mate and with the two Red Bulls fighting and thanks to a great getaway off the line, Fernando was able to rush into the lead, to huge cheers from the partisan crowd and the Ferrari 150º Italia led the first two stints of the race, that saw all the front runners, with the exception of Button, making four stops to change tyres.

As expected, the DRS was not so effective here as in Turkey, which helped Fernando keep the others behind him. Vettel then tried to get ahead by pitting one lap earlier, but it was not enough to get past the Ferrari, while Fernando and Webber came in at the same time, maintaining that order as they left. It was not until the second stops, on lap 18 for Vettel and 19 for Webber and Fernando, that the German took the lead. Hamilton had a long second stint coming in on lap 23 and that proved a key moment as it got him ahead of the duel between the Spaniard and the Australian and into second place. From then on, the Englishman put the reigning world champion under huge pressure all race long.

The two leaders pulled away from Fernando who was doing all he could to keep Webber behind him but this duo was passed by Button, who had the advantage of being on the soft tyres at this point, which did not seem to be suiting the Ferrari. When it came to the final stops, Webber got ahead of Fernando by staying out a few laps longer and that is how it ended at the flag. As for Felipe, he seemed to suffer even more than his team-mate on the hard tyres, survived a spin, but gradually slid out of the points zone, before having to park the car at the side of the track with six laps to go. At the end of the 66 laps, only completed by the top four, with the rest of the field being lapped, the two Mercedes came home behind Fernando with Schumacher sixth and Rosberg seventh, with Heidfeld, Perez and Kobayashi taking the remaining points.

If one has a bad race, the best thing to do is go racing again as soon as possible to try and do better. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and the other teams will not have long to wait, as everyone will be back on track this coming Thursday for the first day of practice for the sixth round of the championship, the famous Monaco Grand Prix.

[de Portago]

I love the team's PR spin... it almost sounds like we did great!

[Greig]

Spanish GP - Without downforce, you can't go forward. In Barcelona, Fernando's talent was not enough

The Spanish Grand Prix ended with just a fifth place for Fernando Alonso. Unfortunately, this race also featured the team’s first retirement of the season, when Felipe Massa stopped on track with a gearbox problem. After five races Fernando is still fifth in the Drivers’ classification on 51 points, while Felipe stays on 24 and drops down to eighth. The Scuderia is third in the Constructors’ classification.

Stefano Domenicali:“There is no denying that being lapped hurts. It’s even more painful after seeing a driver of Fernando’s calibre putting on such a breathtaking display at the start and then fighting like a lion to keep drivers with clearly faster cars behind him for almost twenty laps. We need to provide him and Felipe with a car with which they can fight all the way to the end of a race and not just in the first part. On a track that favours cars that have a lot of aerodynamic downforce, ours are lacking in this area and that was glaringly obvious, especially on the new hard tyres brought here by Pirelli. We never managed to get this type of tyre to work and our pace was at least two seconds off that of the first four. What to do now? Continue to work on improving the car and finding the aerodynamic downforce that is lacking. We now go into a run of three races which will see the use of the soft and supersoft tyres: we will see what happens and assess the situation at that point.”

Fernando Alonso: “The best bit of the race was obviously the start. We have worked so much on this area and you could see the outcome. It was fantastic to see the crowd cheering in the grandstands! I tried to do the maximum, keeping the quickest ones behind me for around twenty laps, but after that, there was nothing I could do. It was very stressful having them filling my mirrors all the time and we tried as much as possible to copy or anticipate their moves. That meant doing over the half the race on the hards, which penalised us heavily and made the gap bigger than it is in reality. We lack aerodynamic downforce: here we did not have a wing that suited this track. We must analyse carefully the behaviour of all the modifications we brought to this Grand Prix and understand why, in the space of two weeks, we have lost ground to Red Bull and McLaren. Now we head off to Monaco immediately for what is a special race on the calendar. Anything could happen there. Sure, we know the amount of downforce required at this track is the highest of the year, but that was also the case last year and we were competitive. I am definitely not thinking of giving up on the championship after just five races: the gap in the classification is very big, but everything can still happen, I’m sure of it.”

Felipe Massa: “Towards the end of the race I could not select the gears and I had to stop at the side of the track: it was a fitting end to a terrible weekend. Luckily, we can start again immediately, with the Monaco race, which is something of a second home race for me, given that I live in the Principality. Also luckily, we will not have the hard tyres we had today that really did not work for us. When we went from the option to the prime we began to suffer more and more: there was no grip and I was struggling to keep the car on track. Thanks to the strategy, we had managed to pass the Mercedes and Petrov’s Renault, but it all came to nothing in the end. We did not have enough aerodynamic downforce to get the hard tyres to work properly, as indeed we have already seen at other races, but here it was even more of a problem.”

Pat Fry: “Yesterday, a fantastic lap from Fernando had seen us for the first time get a place on the two front rows of the grid. Today, the Spaniard did it again with an incredible start, which took him into the lead, putting him into a position that was clearly superior to the objective worth of our package. On the soft tyres we could keep the best cars behind us, but then on the hard we did not stand a chance and we could only think of defending our position. Here, Red Bull and McLaren were clearly quicker than us and it was only down to Fernando’s talent that we managed to hold them off in the first part of the race. We did not have enough aerodynamic downforce for this circuit and we could see that right from the start of the weekend, but clearly we did not expect to be this far off in terms of race pace. There is a lot to do to make this car more competitive: we have made a step forward but it has not been enough to let us fight all the way to the end for the top places. From a strategy point of view I think we made the right choices, trying to cover our main rivals throughout the whole race. Sure, it put the pit stop guys under a lot of pressure, pushing it to the limit, usually with a rival car in the pit lane at the same time: all in all, they did a good job.”

[gpmaster]

The standard blablabla from Stefano